History Lessons
by OverMaster
Summary: A collection of loosely related oneshots eventually forming a larger story of sorts, each starring a different established Servant, an alternate version of a canonical Heroic Spirit, or a Servant taken from another work of fiction. This story also contains several concepts and ideas taken from previous stories of mine, so you are duly warned.
1. Chapter 1

_Fate Grand Order_, _Fate Prototype_, _Fate Zero_, _Fate Stay Night_, _Fate EXTRA_, _Fate Extella_, _Fate Apocrypha_, _Fate Strange Fake_, _Fate Kaleid Liner Prisma Illya_, _Fate Requiem_ and _Fate School Life_ are the creations and intellectual properties of Nasu Kinoko and Type-Moon.

All other characters and franchises mentioned are the intellectual properties of their respective copyright holders.

* * *

**History Lessons.**

**Path One: Saber.**

* * *

Emiya Shirou gasped from his awkward prone position on the old shed's floor, staring up at the figure that had just appeared standing over him. It was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen, with a delicate and fair face that was nonetheless cold and devoid of feelings. Her eyes were large, round and light green, and her hair a pale shade of golden blonde, pulled back into a small bun. She wore a long dress of regal blue cloth, along with a metal chestplate and armored gauntlets and boots. In a hand she held the sturdy handle of a sword, apparently unattached to any blade.

"I am Servant Saber," she told him, bathed from behind by the silver moonlight filtered through the large hole in the wall, with a calm and aloof voice. "I ask of you, are you my Master?"

"Geh…!" Shirou stuttered, too shocked to say anything else. "Geh…!"

She nodded. "I'll assume that's a yes, then. Negatives are usually conveyed as 'Gah!'…"

But then, zooming across the air, the maniac in blue tights who had been chasing Shirou around from school broke into the shed, waving that long spear of his, and this 'Saber' immediately spun around, swinging her hilt with both hands, and just as soon, there was a thundering boom and the man was swatted by some invisible force, directly back out of the shed and onto the Emiya house's backyard.

* * *

Saber and the spearman faced each other on the lawn of Shirou's backyard now, under the gibbous fullness of a silver-white moon. She frowned at the intruder while he flashed a shark's grin at her, almost crouched down with the weapon at the ready.

"Please, whatever you do, don't ruin the roses over there," Shirou asked them, standing aside.

"Heh…" the man in tights chuckled. "That was a nice blow you dealt there, little sister. The Saber, I suppose?"

"What is it to you?" she huffed. "Am I as obvious as you… Lancer?"

Shirou blinked. "No, seriously, are you guys roleplaying, or what? Don't you think this has gone far enough already?"

Lancer clucked his tongue, ignoring Shirou and focusing on the blonde. "Tsk! I'd really love to have a good fight with you, but sadly my Master told me to go all out if I was found out by another Servant. A pity…"

"You aren't going all out, you're just standing there and talking," the woman pointed out.

"What's this nonsense about servants?" Shirou asked them. "_Does she look like she's my maid to you?!_ Hey, stop ignoring me now! This is my house! Should I call the police?"

"I see," Lancer said grimly, taking a quick step back from Saber, and readying his spear, power from long gone ages flowing into it for the final blow. He had always hated and avoided hurting women in the battlefield, going as far as to spare the woman who had brought nothing but ruin to himself and his country.

However, just like Saber herself, he understood it was folly to think of the blonde before him as anything but another warrior, a living weapon... and then, living only according some definitions of the word by human standards.

Just like himself.

It makes no sense to fear for an identity reveal when you are not going to leave any witnesses behind afterwards. Better to go for all already. The next battle waited as eagerly as he waited for it.

_"Gae..."_

Saber frowned and stood still at the middle of the backyard, looking directly at the Lancer's face. As if daring him in silence.

Shirou jerked forward, lifting a hand and yelling a warning that was muted by Lancer's deep intonation, his voice booming across the whole block...

**_"BOLG!"_**

And the power was unleashed, and the air seemed to hum to deafening degrees, as the spear darted forward, with unerring accuracy, towards its intended goal.

Lancer smirked almost psychotically as his favored weapon, unerring and accurate as ever, flew directly through the woman's chest, piercing her all the way through, and coming out his hard, wide back amidst an explosion of gore that splattered all across the yard. Shirou gasped in horror, shaking wildly as the young lady's petite frame hit the grass, causing no sound, not even that of her final choke.

And that shock in her face rattled him even more than Berserker's death itself.

"It is done, thusly," Lancer said, stepping back as Saber's body grew still.

"Oh my God! You just killed Saber-san!" Shirou screamed, horrified at the gratuitous display of violence against a girl. "You aren't human!"

"Well, she did ask for it," Lancer argued in his defense, shrugging his wide shoulders.

"No, she didn't! And even if she did, you shouldn't take mentally ill people's words on those things! The hell's wrong with you?!"

Lancer sighed wearily. "I swear, the more I get to know people from this era… Say, wasn't I about to kill you?" he casually asked, training his spear back on the gulping Shirou. "Stay quiet already so we both can call it an early night…"

"On second thought," Shirou told him, "you can go back to ignoring me now."

There was a rustle of cloth and a clang of metal, and Saber groggily pulled herself up from the red-caked grass, supported on the invisible force projected from her hilt, and bleeding all over. "Excuse me," she told Lancer. "I don't mean to tell you how to do your job, but… you should finish killing an enemy before moving onto another."

"Saber-san!" Shirou gasped.

Lancer's eyes widened dramatically. "That's…impossible!"

"From your legend you should know that there's nothing truly impossible… _Cu Chulainn of Connacht,_" Saber told him, quietly fixing another icy stare on him.

Lancer absorbed this with a mild start, then chuckled again, threw his sharp polearm around his shoulders, and said, "Well, this is a night of surprises! Master told me to disengage if any Servant managed to survive this unbound spear of mine, so… Farewell for now, I guess."

And he suddenly disappeared into the night like a ghost, further startling Shirou.

Saber kept on staring at the spot where Lancer had stood moments ago. "I liked the other Irish Lancer hellbent on killing me better," she finally decided, talking to herself.

"Saber-san!" Shirou gasped, running to her side. "Stay down! I'll call an ambulance! You shouldn't even be talking…!"

"'Tis only a flesh wound," she rebuffed his help, keeping him at arm's length. Placing a hand on her breastplate, she gestured for Shirou to see she wasn't bleeding anymore, and even the cracks on her armor had repaired themselves. "I survived that blow thanks to a convenient combination of my Magic Resistance, my high Luck stat, and Sabers having the Class advantage against Lancers."

"The hell you say!" the red-haired young man protested. "I just saw him kill you! Why aren't you dead?! People should die when they are killed! Um, not that I'm not glad you're alive, of course, but…!"

She blandly looked at him. "What is your name?"

"My… My name?" he repeated. "Ah, it's Shirou… Emiya Shirou, how do you do. Nice to meet you."

"E… Emiya?" she showed her first true sign of emotion, almost recoiling.

He nodded. "That's what I said, yes."

"And… And you have a father? Named Emiya?"

"Well, that would be obvious, now, wouldn't it?"

**_"Emiya Kiritsugu?!"_** she outright cried out, as lights finally started being turned on in the neighboring houses, faces peeking out their windows to catch on what was happening.

Shirou pulled back, surprised, before breaking into a very wide smile. "Ah! _You knew Dad…?!_"

Saber winced, bit sharply on her pale lower lip, and then took a hand to her face, starting to mutter quite foul words in a foreign language to himself.

Shirou lost his smile. "Ah, yeah, well, don't feel too bad. That's not that an uncommon reaction when I tell people about him, actually…"

* * *

"The reason behind my presence here," Saber explained, sitting across Shirou's dinner table after dispatching three large bowls of meat buns in a row, claiming a need to 'recharge mana', whatever that was, "is the Holy Grail War, an ancient conflict between seven magi and their Servants, Heroic Spirits from yore bound to them, such as myself. Your people, I've been told, call it the Heaven's Feel ritual."

Shirou frowned. "'My People', huh?"

"I… I mean Magi!" Saber quickly clarified. "I have nothing whatsoever against the Japanese!"

"Right."

"Right!" she nodded. "There are seven Classes of Servants. The first three are known as the Knight Classes. I am one of the Sabers, that most balanced of all Classes. Paladins, crusaders and swordsmen, we cannot be defeated in close quarters. For ages, we have been charged with slaying warlocks, dragons, Witches, suspicious shady men in black trenchcoats, the faithless, religious zealots and fanatics, tentacle monsters, the vile Frenchmen, tyrants and despots, trolls, black knights, goblins, Gremlins, football hooligans, evil giants, evil midgets, those possessed by the Seven Enemies of Mankind, the disenfranchised, demons, vampires, lycanthropes, and other similar threats to all the good people and the status quo."

"I see."

"Then we have Archers. They are the masters of long range warfare. Bowmen, snipers, projectile users in general. I've even fought one who did nothing but throwing his old junk at others, so the standards of access for the Class cannot be terribly high."

"Nice," Shirou flatly approved.

She reached over for a large bottle of Soder Cola and eagerly drank it down. Shirou was reminded of Taiga's table manners. Then she already put the bottle down and continued, "You already know one of the Lancers. They fight with polearms and spears, and mostly rely on their velocity and agility. This one, Cu Chulainn, is a fierce enemy to fear, if his myth is to be believed. I don't think I could survive another strike of his Gae Bolg."

"Why must we fight each other anyway, what's the point of-?"

"Riders," she interrupted him, "are Legendary Spirits specialized on vehicles or animal mounts. On foot, they theoretically lose a lot of their advantage, although that is not an ironclad rule. We do battle to obtain the Holy Grail the War is named after, of course. Shouldn't you know at least this already?"

"Why should I?!" Shirou protested. "I had no idea being a magus involved any of this, I thought you only had to learn-!"

"A magus cannot consider themselves as such if they don't fully devote their lives to their craft," Saber frowned at him. "The Caster Class embodies that principle to its ultimate consequences. They are astute plotters and schemers, using the tools of sorcery to bend reality to their favor. When confronted directly, past their tricks and traps, they rarely are dangerous for a Knight Servant, but they still easily outclass any living magic user of this era."

"That sounds awful, what kind of person would ever use magic to play dirty and cheat?"

Saber gritted her teeth subtly. "You are in dire need of history lessons, Shirou. Family history, most especially."

"What's that even supposed to mean?!"

"Berserkers," she moved on with a strained tone, taking a loud big chomp out of a Snickers bar Shirou'd been keeping by the kitchen, "are rampaging savages. Their insanity renders them fearless and greatly increases their strength in battle. That gift is called 'Mad Enhancement', yet is also a curse, as Berserkers tend to be so irrational, they easily turn on their Masters. Not to mention their consumption of prana is disproportionate."

Shirou tried to remember a few of Kiritsugu's reluctant lessons on magic. "Prana, that is some kind of magical energy that empowers all living beings, isn't it? The World Tree is supposed to be a huge source of prana, I think, is that why you're here?"

"I don't know anything about World Trees," she admitted. "Will you let me finish already? Finally, we have the Assassin Class. Most of them are physically weak for the standards of other Heroic Spirits, so they rely on subterfuge and stealth. They are backstabbers, murderers who hide in the shadows. Their favored tactic is killing the rival Masters, as we depend on you for prana to anchor us to the World. Without a Master, a Servant will soon disappear, that you are both our main asset and our most blaring weak point."

"Wow," Shirou said. "Thank you, that was very enlightening!"

"You're welcome."

"Okay, so tell me… From where do you know my father anyway?"

"Hnnnn... Is that man all you really care about?!"

* * *

"So, what do we do now?" Shirou asked.

"It's easy enough," Saber said. "We find the other Masters and kill their Servants."

"Saber! We can't do that! It's inhuman!"

"I'm not even arguing for killing the Masters, just the Servants! It's okay, Shirou, we don't have human rights!"

"In that case," he replied, extending a hand over, "give my bag of chips back, since you have no rights to be fed."

She fiercely hugged the open, half-eaten bag of potato chips against her chest. "Make me!"

The young man sighed. "Okay, what was the first thing my dad made you do during the last War?"

"We filed the proper procedure of registering ourselves for the Heaven's Feel before the Catholic church," Saber reminisced. "Of course, we pretended I was the Servant of Kiritsugu's wife, so I was registered under her name. In hindsight, it wasn't a 'proper' procedure either, then... Huh! Damn that man."

"You're eating chips paid by that man's heritage," Shirou told her, then asked, "Wait, so the Catholic church does that?! You mean you can just walk up to a nun and ask her to register you as a Master or Servant?!"

Saber pondered that question briefly before shrugging. "Back in my day, the Church blessed us warriors to kill in the name of the Lord, so... times haven't changed that much, I would suppose? I'm not sure, the Grail gives us some information on the current times, but..."

Shirou steeled himself with grim resolve. "Okay! Heroically filing a register form with a nun. That, I can do..."

* * *

"Excuse me, please," Shirou said the next afternoon, approaching the gates of the local Mary Magdalene church, with a disguised Saber coming shortly behind him. She was wearing a sports ensemble of baseball cap, blue zipped up jacket, tight black shorts, and golden ponytail that only made her all the more conspicuous, especially under the broad daylight. "Is it here where you file in for, you know... that thing?"

One of the two apprentices who had been sweeping the front steps of the church with their brooms, a thin, short fourteen years old girl with short and spiky light brown hair, paused in her chores and looked curiously at him. "Are you here to get married?"

"To get- N-NO!" Shirou gasped, pulling back and blushing madly. "It's, it's nothing like that! It's about that other thing you do here!"

"Do you come to negotiate funeral arrangements?" very quietly asked the other apprentice, a little girl of dark skin and long black hair. "The House of the Lord will gladly handle your final rest..." she flatly delivered obviously memorized lines.

"It's something like that, actually," Saber admitted while Shirou facepalmed. Eventually, he lowered the hand off his face and lowered his voice as well, leaning towards the younger girls.

"You'll see, recently this young lady came to me, telling me she's here for one of those business that happen every sixty years, except because the last one was only ten years ago," he explained, "and we were wondering if you could point us to someone who could help us, discreetly, with that..."

The older apprentice looked completely baffled out of her mind. "...?"

Shirou exhaled. "Forget it, this obviously is a totally normal church for a totally normal school, and you must be thinking we're complete weirdos if not outright perverts. Sorry, we'll be going away right now..."

"Ah, it's a Grail War," deadpanned the little girl, going back to sweeping indifferently. "For that, you want Father Kotomine."

Shirou's jaw fell off its hinges and hung loose.

"Ah, that's right," Saber mused aloud with airs of enlightment. "Now I remember, the priest who spoke with Irisviel and me was named Kotomine Risei..."

The little girl nodded, now turning her back to them as she swept. "That was Father Kirei's father."

"Since when Catholic priests can have children who become priests themselves?!" Shirou protested. "He was adopted, right?"

"And what's wrong with that? You seem to have a lot of misconceptions about our church, Sempai. I hope to marry my homeroom teacher someday," shared the older apprentice. "Of course, I'm no priest, but the principle is the same..."

Shirou winced, recalling some rumors he'd heard around the school. "Wait a sec, are you one of those students of that child teacher, Negi-sensei...?"

"A-yep!" she grinned, flipping a salute. "How do you do, I'm Kasuga Misora and this is Cocone-chan! What's a Grail War, by the way? Some practical exercise of faith I haven't been told about yet? I'm still a novice after all, even if extremely promising and bright and humble and everything..."

* * *

"Well, like Sugiura-sensei would say, that could have gone better," a rattled Shirou said, walking back home with Saber as the night fell around them.

"I don't know what else you were expecting for," Saber was calmly telling him. "It's got the word 'War' right in its name, would you expect for it to be settled peacefully?"

"Well, it's also got 'Holy' in the name!" Shirou argued. "Plus, all wars eventually end up with a treaty or armistice, not when everyone but two guys are dead!"

"Leaving aside the fact your concept of warfare in these modern times obviously is quite different from the norm in my era," Saber said, "you still didn't have to take the name so literally."

"You were the one taking it literally in the first place!"

Then, while doubling around a solitary street corner near an abandoned lot, she tensed up. "Master, beware! I can feel another Servant near us!"

"What!" he said. "Is it Lancer again, or-!?"

In a flash, she'd jumped away, her clothes dissolving in a blaze of golden light, and reforming themselves into her blue gown and armor. The invisible sword came back to her hand, and she swung it down forcefully, slashing down into a man just as soon as she reached the rooftop of an old, seemingly empty house across the street. Shirou shouted in horror, as blood flew everywhere out of the gash Saber had just cut through the other man's torso, faster than he could react.

He was, Shirou saw, very tall and well muscled, even moreso than the lean and vibrant Lancer, but still not bulky as such. He was clothed in black and red, with tall dark boots, and a long, open scarlet coat all over the ensemble, contrasting with his tan skin and short, cropped white hair. He thrusted two short blades up, blocking Saber's next strike with difficulty, and then she only growled, punted him upwards across the stomach, and sent him flying away from her, so he fell aside and rolled across to the edge.

Shirou squinted, and could see Saber rushing next towards a girl who'd been standing behind this man, raising her weapon at her. He thought he recognized her, and this only shocked him even more.

"Saber, no!" he begged.

Saber paid him no mind, even as the girl of dark hair made into twintails moved a hand up, several shining objects flashing between her fingers. She threw these at Saber, projecting some manner of glowing shield between them, but Saber just destroyed it easily with another blow of the unseen sword, causing the other female to recoil in surprise, now clearly afraid for her life.

The blonde paused for the slightest of moments. "Congratulations," she told her. "That would have stalled any Servant but a Saber. However, you didn't choose the correct target for your ambush."

_"S-Saber...!"_ Shirou could hear the girl say, a tingling, nearly fangirlish affection now tinting her voice.

"Die," Saber mercilessly said, swinging at her again.

"NO! SABER, STOP!" Shirou screamed.

He felt an extremely painful burning sensation all over the back of his right hand, as one of the red marks on it glowed as they had not since Saber was summoned. And then it puffed out of his flesh, leaving a searing but quickly healing scar on its place. And Saber grinded to a sudden halt, her eyes growing as wide as those of the other girl, while her sword stopped itself scarce milimeters from her head.

Saber's head spun back violently. "Master! What was that for?! She's an enemy Master and must be disposed of!"

"You said we didn't have to kill the Masters!" he yelled back at her from the sidewalk.

"That's something one can allow oneself to say in a strategic meeting, but not always in the heat of battle!"

"No fighting, no fighting!" Shirou kept on scolding her from below. "Saber, they hadn't even attacked us yet! You can't go around killing others as soon as you see them, are you one of those Berserkers?! What if she's a pacifist Master!?"

Saber blinked. "A pacifist- Wha-What kind of absurd notion is that!?" she yelled at him. "A pacifist Master, who's ever heard of anything like that!?"

"I am one!" Shirou reminded her, even as the no longer bleeding man in red and black struggled back to his feet. He made the first signs of getting ready to attack Saber, but the blonde briefly stared figurative swords in his direction.

"Don't even try it," she warned, then told Shirou, "Lightning surely cannot strike twice in the same War! You're such an outrageous, strange exception, there's no way this woman could be like you at all!"

"I'll take that as praise, so thank you," the girl flatly said, gesturing at her Servant to lower his blades, which he reluctantly did.

"No, no, you aren't getting it!" Shirou kept telling Saber. "I know that girl from school, there's no way she could be a killer, and even if she were, do you want to get me jailed!?"

Saber pouted. "I'd break you out! Besides, there are ways of disposing of bodies..."

"And you said I was the sneaky one," the tanned man dryly told his Master, who just smiled and walked past him and Saber, stopping by the edge of the rooftop.

"So!" she called down haughtily. "Emiya Shirou, son of Magus Killer Kiritsugu! Seeing what transpired ten years ago, it's just fitting you'd face now in-!"

"Tohsaka," the boy interrupted her, somewhat awkwardly.

"Yes, Emiya-kun? Do you want start negotiating for mercy already?"

"You really should step back. Your panties can be seen from here," he sheepishly told her, pointing up her very short black skirt.

Tohsaka Rin, Mahora Academy's top idol student, yelped, and quickly backed away, pulling her skirt back against her legs while blushing.

The white haired man sighed deeply. "How do you do, I'm Archer," he introduced himself to Saber. "Is this Idiotic Master Season, or what...?"

* * *

Shirou dreamed, a dream not his own.

On a hill of swords and dead bodies, under a blood red sky and a burning setting sun, the darkness quickly approaching, they clashed brutally, again and again, steel clanging repeatedly in vicious collisions, armored bodies strained far beyond average human endurance. Helmets shattered long ago, identical gore splattered faces staring at each other through swollen eyes, the father and the son were the last two combatants standing on the cursed battlefield.

"Why won't you surrender!" Mordred screamed, struggling to keep the tears at bay. "You've lost everything, while no matter what, I'll keep my hatred! Let go of your pride, Father! The kingdom is lost, you… I… It doesn't matter anyone, who keeps it…" she wheezed, coughing up crimson splurts while madly stabbing ahead, each motion more erratic and jerky than the last. "We have brought ruin upon it… everything is gone…"

Artoria did not reply with words but kept on pressing her attack, even though she was dying herself. Her face, unlike Mordred's, seemed devoid of any emotion, obscured both by the bangs of her unkempt gold hair and the blood caked on her features. As ever, her silence only further enraged Mordred, who fought on, drawing strength from weakness, intent on killing her at last.

"Why do you hate me so much, Father?!" Mordred howled, mad with sorrow and, perhaps, fear. "Why did you always hate me, even before I did anything wrong?! I was not my mother! I shouldn't have paid the price for her sins, Father!"

"You are wrong," Artoria hissed, chillingly quiet in tone but harshly cruel in delivery, as her spear went into Mordred's body armor, successfully cracking through it. She pushed her back, literally lifting her off her feet as Morded puked blood on her. "Not once did I despise you. There was only one reason I would not give you the throne. You didn't have the capacity of a King!"

Mordred clenched her teeth in the pain of agony, feeling as the blessed tip of Rhongomyniad pierced into her flank, perforating between two ribs and then curving upside, causing even more untold pain. If anything, that only further fueled her rage, as she made her final move by stabbing her damned blade into Artoria's chest. **_"And you did?!"_** she demanded, then pulled herself back, dropping on her stomach, gasping insanely for air.

"I don't know," Artoria said just as quietly, holding a hand to her wound for a moment, and then staggering to turn around, giving her back to Mordred. Her shoulders shagged, and she stared into nothingness, perhaps crying in silence over everything that should have been done but was not.

Mordred sobbed pitifully, unsatisfied at the answer, and tried to reach up with a gauntlet for the person she had placed the whole of her faith on, attempting for one final touch, for at least one warm contact with her once beloved father. But Artoria just stood there, still, out of her reach, and Mordred simply collapsed with a last whimper, closing her eyes and giving up at last.

Artoria dropped on her knees, barely holding onto her massive spear, and trembled in the fiercest cold she had ever felt, until she felt, through the increasing blindness taking over her, a lone figure slowly approaching. One of her knights, perhaps the last of them, in still functional armor, staggering but clearly not in any immediate risk of death. And so she felt good for her, and allowed herself one final smile.

"Bedivere," she said fondly, as she knelt before her, to gently cradle her body against hers. She heard her heartfelt apology, and surrendered to that haze of the unknown dream.

* * *

"You know, last night, I was having the weirdest dream of all," Shirou thoughtfully said while cleaning the breakfast table, after Taiga had left off in a hurry to get to classes before her students did. "I dreamed of you."

Saber gave him a bland but very pointed glare.

"H-Hey, don't start giving me weird looks!" the boy blushed. "It was a dream about you on a battlefield, and everybody was dead…"

"Ah, that," she said. "It's no big deal. Servants and Masters often share dreams of each other's past, through the binds that link us. Nothing to worry about."

"Oh, I see," Shirou said, taking the plates to the dishwasher and turning it on. "Sorry anyway, I didn't mean to, and I don't remember much of it, so I didn't learn anything too private or that tipped me of your real name. You'll tell me when you're ready, I suppose."

"Thank you, Shirou," she sincerely said. "Don't believe I distrust you, please, it's just… I'd rather keep a distance on these matters unless absolutely necessary, just in case. For both of our sakes.

Shirou had no idea exactly what did she mean with this, but chose not pressing her further on the subject. "That's fine…"

After a moment of doubt, she softly told him, "If you'd like, you could call me for the nickname they gave me during my childhood. My enemies wouldn't know about that."

"Sure thing, that'd be nice! What is it?"

"Wart."

"…" Shirou said.

"I could even kill my enemies while they're either stunned or laughing idiotically over you calling me that," Saber thought out loud. "Yes, that is it, what a great strategic genius you are, Wart…"

Shirou cringed. "Let's… just save it for a grand last resource card like it deserves, okay?"

* * *

"How many times do I have to tell you? I'm not leading you into a trap!" Rin insisted, clenching fists and teeth alike as she stomped up the green mountain past twilight, along Archer, Shirou and Saber.

"That," Saber said, "is right what someone leading us into a trap would say, which only makes you even more suspicious."

"Saber…" her Master groaned. "You don't know Tohsaka like I do. She wouldn't have asked for our help, or anyone else's, if she didn't need it!"

"Exactly!" Rin nodded firmly, never looking back. "If I really wanted you dead, I'd just have Archer shoot Emiya-kun from afar long ago! I even know where you live, for Pete's sake!"

"There's still time, you know. Just say the word," Archer said, mimicking a finger gun on the annoyed Shirou's temple, while Saber glared at him. "Seriously, Rin, I can take care of this on my own…"

Rin looked up, at the massive World Tree on the top of the hill, overlooking the whole Mahora area. "No. After what happened to Fuyuki, I won't take any chances concerning the safety of a hometown under the Tohsaka jurisdiction," she decided. "All clues on the recent life energy thefts and 'gas leaks' lead here, and it's about time you make yourself useful as the hero you fancy yourself to be, Emiya."

Shirou frowned, nodding and gripping the reinforced Boken in his right hand. "Of course! I'm not going to back away on this!"

"Even if it's a trap…" Saber agreed before tensing up, stopping and blocking Shirou's way with an outstretched arm. One moment later, Archer also stopped and forced Rin back and behind him, pulling her by a shoulder. "Another Servant," the blonde said. "And no, it's not Lancer."

"Wonder what became of that jolly fellow," Archer bitterly snarked, flashing his dual short blades out. "Never mind, we always can pin after him later…"

Like a ghost, a man, not as tall as Archer but slightly taller than Lancer, appeared up the hillside, standing on their way. He wore the elegant traditional robes of a classic samurai and held a katana. His face was delicately handsome, and his hair a deep shade of purple, tied back into a long ponytail. He smiled faintly, only causing the others to scowl.

"Looks like the woman was correct after all, and someone figured it out," the stranger said with great aplomb. "All the same, I am thankful to you. The chore of looking after this tree was growing quite boring indeed."

"Who are you?" Saber asked, advancing despite Shirou's attempts to hold her back, her Invisible Air at the ready.

"Nothing but a humble groundskeeper. Call me Assassin," this man said, assuming a battle stance Taiga would have envied. "I've been asked to stop Masters and Servants from approaching this holy tree, so I ask you: will you fight me one on one, or will you give my blade a real challenge?"

"I fight my duels by myself," Saber promised, running up and waving her weapon in a graceful and wide swatting arc. "And you should have stuck to your shadows, Assassin!"

_"Saberrrrrr!"_ Shirou called out after her.

Smirking to himself, the samurai ran down to meet her in mid-way, and her swords collided in an explosion of power.

* * *

"Well, what do you think about that?" Shirou finally asked, breaking a long and awkward shared silence as he, Saber and Rin walked away from the World Tree under the cloaking of the night. Archer hung in astral form somewhere nearby, something Shirou was actually quite thankful for inwardly.

"My opinion is," Saber said thoughtfully, "Assassin's sword technique is complicated and unique indeed, but I have assimilated its intricacies enough, so next time we face each other, I'll be able of beating him handily. Even if he never made it clear which species of swallow was that, African or European."

"What would an African swallow be doing in Japan?" Rin questioned. "An European one, off course enough, I can get, but African?"

"I don't mean that!" Shirou complained. "The World Tree is really important for all of Mahora's leylines, right? Even if we kill Assassin, and I'm not saying we will, if we can't figure out how to break whatever control Assassin's Master has on it, everything we do will be for nothing!"

"Maybe Negi-sensei could help us," Rin dryly said, stopping and looking directly ahead, down the long street, forcing Shirou to follow her gaze with his.

Indeed, there stood a ten years old boy with dark red hair and tiny bifocals on his cute face, holding a long, old, bandaged and beaten wooden staff in his hands. With him stood Misora and Cocone from the church, plus a girl with large round glasses and light brown hair in a ponytail; a much shorter pale and thin girl of wide forehead and black hair in two braids; and a very beautiful girl with long and flowing purplish hair. All later three appeared to be the same age as Misora, that was, fourteen. A white ermine firmly clung to the little boy's right shoulder.

"Good evening, Tohsaka-san," the young boy polite but sternly addressed Rin. "And nice to meet you as well, Emiya-san. Misora-san has told us about you."

Rin smirked. "Emiya-kun, this is Negi Springfield, son of Nagi the Thousand Master."

"Ah, good evening, it's a real pleasure!" Shirou amiably bowed to the child, not knowing who this Thousand Master spoke of was, or what he was a master of, but choosing not to remark on it. "Ah, this is a friend of my late father currently staying with me, Miss—"

"Saber," the blonde coldly cut him short, fixing her eyes on Negi.

Negi, as if surprised not to feel any dangerous or hostile vibes from Shirou, as one would from someone known as 'son of a Magus Killer', hesitated before flashing a big pure smile at them. "Oh! Oh, that's… nice, pleased to meet you as well. These are some of my students, you already know Misora-san and Cocone-chan, and the others are Hasegawa Chisame-san, Hakase Satomi-san, and Kakizaki Misa-san. I'm sorry if we're being a bother, but Tatsumiya-san, from Campus Patrol, called saying she'd seen you heading towards the World Tree late past curfew, and on the light of recent events, we thought—"

Then, there was a booming sound, like that of gigantic footsteps approaching down a side street, through the darkness. Everyone present blinked several times.

"W-What was _that_, now?!" the girl named Misa gasped.

Misora's teeth had started clacking together frantically. "Oh, oh, oh my God, I don't like that sound at all…!"

A gigantic lurching shape appeared in the distance slowly heading towards them, with a much smaller figure sitting atop it. Negi's blood froze in his veins. Misa frowned and then squinted as much as possible. Misora yelped loudly, grabbing Cocone and hiding behind Hakase and Hasegawa with her. Rin harshly cursed something between grinding teeth. Shirou only stared on cluelessly.

"Shirou. Behind me," Saber curtly said, but Emiya was as paralyzed as Negi was at the time, although from perplexity rather than dread.

"I had been waiting for this moment, and it was about time!" the tiny, pale person sitting atop the muscular, shirtless giant with grayish skin and red eyes that almost seemed to glow said, loud and clear. "For my dear brother to be right at my reach, so I could introduce myself properly! Good evening, Emiya Shirou-kun and whoever the rest of you are!"

She tilted ahead just a bit, perfect, tiny white teeth glinting or at least giving the illusion of it, her diminutive hands wrangled into the thick, messy black locks of her ride's long hair. Violet eyes feasting on the sights before her. Anticipating what there was to come.

"Your precious sister's here," she said. "Your Illya-chan!"

* * *

"Illya… chan?" Shirou echoed, gulping dubiously, as Rin swiftly pulled five gems out of each sleeve and rolled them into her hands, and Saber and Negi stood their respective grounds, preparing their weapons of choice. "I'm sorry, I… should I know you from somewhere, or…?" he trailed off nervously.

"Shirou, this is your older sister Illyasviel, Kiritsugu's biological daughter," Saber informed him.

"Ah," he said, "that's kind of funny, I don't remember him ever—w-wait, did you just say OLDER sister?!"

The man was truly gigantic, a mass of grotesque muscle wielding a massive slab of rock that was to the sword what the rock is to the bullet. It was easily twice as big as Illya herself. Shirou guessed that had to be her Servant, although he did not understand how a little girl could have been chosen or worked her way to be a Master in a conflict like this. Still, he definitely gave a matching sense of threat and undiluted power, and even the often stupidly brave Negi could not blame Emiya-san for freezing in place where he stood, one of his hands tightly wrapped around one of Saber's wrists.

The blonde woman simply stood defiantly in an expert stance and as if holding some manner of invisible or imaginary weapon between her hands. With a mere shrug, she had allowed her long rain coat drop off herself, momentarily revealing to be a pair of skimpy shorts, a nigh-microscopic top, very high stockings and some shoes before there was a blaze of light, and when she was visible again she wore a long regal blue dress with armored plates all over it, plus heavy, thick gloves of matching armor.

Chisame was instantly jealous at how modest and lacking in nudity her transformation sequence was.

It hardly looked like the most comfortable outfit to fight in, Negi dimly thought before his full attention returned to Illyasviel, who had shifted around so she sat cross legged on a shoulder of the giant.

"Illya-san," the younger boy said. "Why are you here? Please listen, let's be reasonable here, I'm not sure what have you heard about Emiya-san, but—"

Illya's gaze drifted towards Shirou, who was coming back to himself enough as to now try and pull Saber back with himself, and completely fail at doing so. "What did I hear about him? Nothing good," the small girl replied, with a slight sneer to her formerly playful tone. "I wasn't expecting for him to be able to summon a Servant himself, and of the Saber class, no less. I see Father might have been able to teach him something after all. Well," she said, leaping down to land on her booted feet on the sidewalk, scaring Misora even further, and then pulling the edges of the skirt up a bit, enough as to properly accompany her subtle bowing in a cutesy curtsy, "now we'll see exactly how much! Berserker! Kill that ugly Servant!"

Then there was a roar, not unlike that of a huge beast from long gone eras, something that might have haunted the nightmares of the first men and women in a young world, something that chilled Negi, Chisame and Shirou to their very cores, and made Misora and Misa shriek while covering their ears. Rin sighed very wearily and began muttering orders for Archer under her breath.

And then, in a blink, before any of them could truly react past the primal dread or awe that roar elicited from them, the massive titan was charging at them with incredible speed, so fast as a matter of fact only one of them could react to it. That was Saber, who similarly charged forward, leaving Emiya's hand suddenly holding nothing but air, and ducking under the first mace swing of the colossus, striking with her invisible or imaginary (Negi dearly hoped for the former) weapon at the muscular midsection of the Berserker.

And they could literally feel the shockwaves of the clash making the ground rattle under his feet. They could all but literally touch the raw aura of power emanating from this behemoth, who didn't even flinch at the obviously also very powerful direct attack Saber had directed at his granitic body.

Instead of expressing any pain or being set back at all, the Berserker simply swatted Saber aside like a fly, sending her crashing against a wall. "SABER!" Shirou cried, trying to rush for her, before Negi, still mostly reacting instinctively, held him from behind, pulling him back before the taller young man could advance.

"Oh crap!" Rin backed away further on agile legs. "Archer, this damn better work or else…!"

Negi steeled himself, breathing as deeply as he could. He could feel the nervous gazes of his students, all on him, as they tensely waited for his reaction, their cue of what to do. Well, all but Satomi-san, who only stared in wide eyed fascination at Berserker's display of raw power, no doubt scheming to end up studying him under a microscope eventually. And maybe even literally to boot.

So. That was what leadership truly felt like. He wasn't all too sure he liked that feeling just yet. It was very different, despite the surface similarities, to what he felt in his comfortable role as a teacher.

For all he knew, he would be very outmatched here, in this conflict between legendary heroes whose recognition dwarfed even that of his father. In fact, he was practically sure of it. Still, he couldn't just stand back and simply let that happen as he did nothing but watching.

_"Rastel Ma Scir Magister..."_ he began to softly chant under his breath...

* * *

"This is so foolish," a bored-sounding Illya commented, standing on the sidewalk while looking at the fingernails of one of her hands. With the other, she was establishing a sound-dampening Bounded Field to cover the area. It wouldn't do, after all, to have nosy bystanders call the local authorities to interrupt this perfectly nice match. "Don't you know who Berserker is? It's Heracles! You just don't get into a fight with Heracles and, well, survive it! What a dumb brother I have!"

While Saber frontally attacked the giant by repeatedly hacking and slashing on his muscular front, the others tried to, at the very least, keep him distracted. Negi zapped at his upper section with a constant stream of light arrows, already starting to clench his teeth under the pressure. Misa was throwing light needles at Berserker's eyes, but while most of her hits did connect, they didn't look like they were blinding the creature. It was doubtful even blinding him would have mattered after all, since he attacked with single minded intensity not unlike that of a mindless beast.

However, as Negi realized immediately, Berserker followed Illyasviel's orders to the letter, so when she had commanded for him to kill Saber, that was what he focused on. That meant he thankfully ignored the youngsters attacking him from all sides, treating them as pests beneath his attention. Negi realized, to his dawning horror, that had she ordered him to kill everyone, his students would be dead by now.

Misa paused, fully startled. "Heracles? I don't get it, is that supposed to be someone famous?"

"Heracles is the original Greek name for the mythical hero the Romans called Hercules, Kakizaki-san," Hakase explained to her.

"Oh! I see, why didn't I think of that before, that's very obv—WAIT! Th-Th-That's a very bad thing, isn't it?!"

Then, however, there was a loud, unbearable rippling noise, that of something zooming across the air producing a sound that was just plain disconcerting. It was as if reality itself was being torn apart in the wake of something that flew over and past the heads of Shirou, Rin, Negi and his companions, and then directly through the Berserker's head, piercing his skull all the way, and clearly coming out the opposite temple. Then this long, sharp looking projectile exploded against the pavement while the demigod plummeted on his face against the street, causing a small ground tremor all across the surrounding blocks.

"What… What was that?!" Shirou, Negi and Chisame found themselves saying at the same time, while Misora and Misa had just lost their voices.

Rin smiled. "Hey, he may not look like it most of the time, but I _did_ summon an Archer, remember?"

Negi's head whipped around in the direction the sword now imbedded into the shattered pavement had flown from, and blinked, bewildered, at the sight of a tanned bowman standing on a rooftop two blocks away, flipping him a salute and smirk. "Your Archer shoots **_swords_** from his bow?!"

Rin shrugged. "He's good at cooking and cleaning house, too. What can I say? The man's talented, if kind of flaky."

Shirou gasped in horror, and a second later, his head snapped towards Illya, who simply stood aside watching how her Servant's hulking frame lying on the street, at the middle of a large pool of dark blood. He had expected to see the horror of a lost innocence as the child watched her Servant get assassinated before her very own eyes, but he only saw Illya giving a small confident smile.

And that unnerved him even more than Berserker's death itself.

"So… is it over, at last?" Misora gulped, cautiously stepping ahead as Berserker's body grew still.

Saber was back at her Master's side now. "So it would seem. Congratulations, then, Rin. You have a fine Servant after all."

"I think I'm going to be sick," Chisame groaned, taking a hand to her mouth.

"Not so fast, you idiots!" Archer shouted from afar, leaping towards them while readying his blades. "Killing him just once won't do it!"

"Ha ha ha ha, indeed it won't!" Illya laughed, fists on her hips, as Berserker rose again, his chest wound closing quickly and his slab of rock swinging around. "Heracles is immortal! So know despair, inferior Servants! Your time's up!"

"Well," Chisame sighed while everybody else freaked the heck out. "Now we know why Tatsumiya didn't come to check on this herself, don't we…"

* * *

Saber sat before the TV (at the proper distance advised by the standard Japanese warnings, since she was Lawful Good) late at night, watching _Monty Python and the Holy Grail_ in a movie channel. "It is amazing," she stoically mused at one point, "only these chaps have remembered poor Sir Robin ever existed…"

Moments later, someone rang the door. "I'll go," Shirou said, reaching the door even before Saber could finish bolting upwards to do it herself, just in case. _How does he keep doing it?! _she wondered. Much to her relief, it only was the boy teacher, along with the pockmarked girl with glasses, the ermine and the smaller bespectacled girl. "Oh, good evening, Sensei, Hasegawa-san, Hakase-san! Um, you do realize you're out way past the junior high curfew, don't you…?"

"Emiya-san," Negi said very seriously, handing him a handwritten note. "We've got a grave problem we'll need Saber-san's help with. It seems someone got the impression, perhaps based on my father's fame, I might be a Master for this Grail War of yours, and, w-well..."

"They've gone and kidnapped one of our classmates as bait for Sensei," Chisame finished for him as Negi was obviously choking up like the child he was after all. "But you said only a Servant can beat another Servant, so…"

Saber now stood valiantly by Shirou's side, startling him, fully clad in battle regalia already. "I'll answer the call, naturally," she told the visitors. "Rescuing fair maidens in distress is a duty any half-worth knight will gladly oblige to."

"Actually, she isn't a fair maiden, she's' Saotome Haruna from the manga club," Chisame started, "but… never mind, there's no reason why you should know. Actually, there's a fifty-fifty chance you'll have to rescue the kidnappers from her instead."

"Not your favorite person in the world, huh?" Shirou guessed.

"Let's just say there are some reasons why neither Chisame nor I are exactly panicking at the moment, Sempai," Hakase detachedly answered while Negi facepalmed.

* * *

Negi held Haruna in his arms as they, Chisame, Satomi, Chamo, Shirou and Saber watched helplessly how, from the half flooded ruins of the old observatory, a gigantic battleship began rising. Floating up from the stank waters that had swallowed the collapsed structure, like a ghost from swashbuckling epics, the massive pirate galleon ascended, hovering above them and training two whole rows of large cannons down at the youngsters, the ermine, and the knight.

_"Heavy Firepower Animal Abuse…!"_ Chamo wailed hysterically.

Haruna's eyes shone and grew downright huge, as she balled her fists under her chin. "_This is soooooo freaking cooooool!-!-!"_

_Somewhere in the Throne of Heroes, Gilles de Rais sneezed._

Standing proudly on the ship for all to see, with a coughing and soaked Matou Shinji clinging to her legs, Rider laughed thunderously, her breasts bouncing up and down in a way that mesmerized Chamo and Haruna, and made Chisame and Satomi wince in primal envy. Negi and Shirou only could stand in awe of the man-of-war itself.

"Oh ho ho ho!" Rider boasted. "Behold, the ultimate scourge of all seven seas! You are fortunate, for you'll be wiped by none but the Golden Hind, the pride and joy of my peerless campaigns! It's been a damn good time, lads and lasses! I'll thank you forever…!"

"… so, she is…?" Chisame gulped, really wishing she hadn't come along. "F-For some reason I'm drawing blanks, must be the terror of impending death…!"

"Sir Francis Drake," Negi said between grinding teeth.

Saber smiled faintly and stepped ahead of them. "Saber, don't you dare…" Shirou gulped as the cannons were prepared to fire, mostly zeroed in on her. There was no way they'd miss her—no, **_them_**—and as soon as they fired, they'd be blown up to dust and bits, no doubts about that. Even the best of swordsmen surely had to be powerless against something like that.

Chisame was projecting an electric barrier around them with her heart-topped scepter, and Negi was chanting to add a magical shield of his own, but Shirou knew in his gut that wouldn't be enough. "Saber, just run away!" he yelled at her. "Contract someone else, you still can escape…!"

"This isn't even the worst menace from the sea I have obliterated in a Grail War. Calm down, Shirou, Professor, girls. Have faith," she said, lifting her invisible sword and aiming it squarely at Rider herself.

"Tch," Rider huffed, pointing her hand down while Shinji looked on eagerly, with manic excitement. "FIRE!"

The cannons shook and rumbled, and then roared, drowning Saber's words as she shouted them. Negi, wide eyed, could see the cannonballs being shot downwards, flying towards them, and he drew Chisame violently into the protective embrace he'd been sharing with Haruna, pressing them against himself, whispering an apology, just as he heard Saber's final exclamation, somehow managing to rise over the cannons. Her blade finally grew visible in all its golden glory, with a blinding burst of light that flew upwards, vaporizing the cannonballs in its blazing wake, and zooming past them and directly into Drake and her ship.

**_"EXCALIBUR!"_**

Rider managed to blink yet, truly astonished of a sudden. "Oh," she quietly said. "What have I been doing? This is being a bad subject for the Cr—"

And then everything around her blew up.

* * *

The tainted Grail had been obliterated. Caster, Lancer, Rider, Assassin, Berserker, and this War's Archer had all fallen. But one loose end still remained. A single grudge from the past had to be settled before she could rest in peace, at last.

Two figures clashed time and time again across the out of control fires, moving almost faster than even a trained human eye could follow, often becoming brief glimpses of blurry shining armor to the viewer. Of course, since most of those viewers were currently trapped in the burning wreckage of the Commercial District, those flashing images would be the last thing they would ever see, unaware they died witnessing a battle to mark the eras.

Neither of the combatants was too physically big. For modern standards, the Golden Archer was merely respectably tall, even if his voluminous armor made him look a lot bigger and bulkier than he actually was. And his adversary in blue was positively tiny, almost adorable with her golden bun and cute, rounded face of large eyes and minuscule nose. Yet, each motion they made caused booming sounds through the air, and the impression they'd give was one of being terrifyingly larger than life. Demigods battling each other while surrounded by the handwork of all too mortal men.

The woman used her feet to push herself off the street pole she'd just been flung onto, bouncing back to charge across the air towards her foe. With an amused, rough sneer that nearly was guffaw, the taller combatant leapt back from the store window she'd swatted him through, readying several sharp weapons at once.

As they converged on her, she readied her own blade, and screamed, as loud as her lungs would allow, shattering the few remaining windows of their proximity with the feral might of her roar.

**_"EXCAAAALIBUUUUUURRRRRR!"_**

And half of Academy City exploded, sending orange flames high into the skies.

Standing on top of a hill at the boundaries of the city, overlooking the disaster, Shirou, Negi, Rin, Sakura, Chamo, Chisame, Satomi, Misora, Cocone, Misa, Haruna, Fujimura Taiga, Evangeline A.K. Mc Dowell and Karakuri Chachamaru could only stare helplessly, with huge eyes and wide open mouths, at the slowly setting carnage.

_"Saber..."_ Shirou said softly, with wet eyes and faintly outstretching a bleeding hand into the ashen dust wafting from the wreckage.

"... well," the tiny, blonde Evangeline sighed after a moment. "Looks like the Mahora leylines are just as broken as the Fuyuki ones now. On the bright side, this means the nightmare of the Heaven's Feel is over at long last. Not to mention... there's nothing to support Nagi's spell binding me to this place anymore! Mwa ha ha ha ha!" She threw her long hair back and cackled maniacally.

The green haired Chachamaru quietly bopped her across the head from behind. "So not the time right now, Master..."

Shirou fell to his knees on the dirt, lowering his head as much as it would go, with the Tohsaka sisters crouching at each side of him to comfort him as best as they could. Taiga just kept on staring into the distance, dumbfounded, for the longest of all whiles, until she regained enough of her voice to ask something.

"Soooooo..." the short haired woman said, "What was all of that about, anyway?"

* * *

She stood on the eternal field of flowers, her sword's tip planted on the ground, her green gaze fixed on the blue distance, the skies that were starkly clear and sunny forever. Basking in the warmth, she stood guard in silence, a proud warrior in rest. The wars and the horrors stood long behind, lost in the mists of times that had lost all meaning so long ago, just like the concept of time itself.

She waited.

Some would have said there was nothing to keep watch for anymore, and hence nothing and nobody to wait for either. Most would have thought she should have gone insane, or that perhaps she already had gone insane, in her own way, for in a meaningless situation, surrendering to the despair of a lack of all purpose and stubbornly clutching to a purpose that clearly was not there anymore were divergent but equal symptoms of madness.

She would have paid them no mind. She waited in silence, smiling even, never faltering on her booted feet. A gorgeous statue in the field of flowers, but there was nothing stony or stiff about her immobility. Even though the only parts of her that moved were her hair and long skirt caressed by the breeze, and the chest that subtly rose and descended constantly under her chestplate with each breathing, there was no rigidity on her rest, and in any unexpected event, she would have been able to move again just as quick and swiftly as ever.

Under the sun, as fragant as the flowers beneath her, a perfect still depiction of the ideal lady of war, the King of Knights kept true to her duty.

The King of Avalon stood in silence, the ideal sentinel for eternity, and yet holding the hope for release in her heart forever. If it never arrived, she would not complain, but she knew it would. It was a certainty she could not express in words. It just existed in her, and that would always be more than enough to keep her there, alone with her thoughts.

Until finally, at some point, she saw someone running towards her from the distance, and in turn, she ran forward to greet him, breaking into a smile at long last.

"Shirou!" Saber cried joyfully as she raced through the flowery prairies to his encounter.

"Artoria!" Shirou responded with equal delight, going to meet her in embrace. Behind him, the others, so many of them, the heroes of legend and myth, Masters and Servants alike, those who had earned an everlasting presence through their larger than life miseries and glories, their comrades, hung close, yet holding a respectful distance, for the time at being at least, giving them enough room as to meet in a flawless hug that seemed to send invisible ripples of pure, warm, untold power all across the Timeless Fields of Avalon.

For a moment that lasted another eternity, they held each other under the perfect sun, and everything was good.

* * *

**To be Continued.**

* * *

**Saber.**

**True Name**: Artoria Pendragon.

**Alternate Names**: King of the Bretons, King of Knights, The Lion of Camelot, Artie, Wart, The Once and Future King.

**Alignment**: Lawful Good.

**Gender**: Female.

**Attribute:** Earth.

**Likes**: "Anything I may like personally has stopped being relevant since long ago. I am now a warrior, a king, a knight, and now a Servant. Thusly, think of me as nothing but a weapon to be yielded."

**Dislikes:** "Injustice. Opression. The unfairness of Man against his fellow and brother. Those are the things I will always oppose until my final breath."

**Natural Enemy:** Morgan Le Fay, Mordred, Gilgamesh, Gilles De Rais, Lucius Tiberius.

**Parameters:**

Strength: B

Endurance: A

Agility: B

Mana: A

Luck: C

Noble Phantasm: A+

**Biography: **

The illegitimate daughter of Uter Pendragon, King of the Bretons, raised in tumultuous dark times after the King's death by noble Sir Ector, along his son Kay. Brought up as a boy, and given the nickname 'Wart', Artoria was found and educated by Merlin the Archmage, who molded her into a fine gallant knight, eventually able to pull the fated sword Caliburn out of its stone, granting her the non-democratic right to rule over Britain, under the assumed name of Arthur.

When Caliburn was shattered in battle, she replaced it with Excalibur, the blade forged by fairies and gifted by the Lady of the Lake. Artoria was an apt, justice loving king who took great efforts to be a perfect sovereign, but eventually managed to alienate many with her larger than life approach to governing. She nonetheless gathered several of the finest warriors of her time, the Knights of the Round Table, under her guidance, and with them she embarked into many successful military campaigns, including one quest to retrieve the Holy Grail itself.

Artoria's kingdom came to an end when her bastard son Mordred, spurred by his mother, Artoria's half sister Morgan (it's complicated), led a rebellion against her, right while the Royal House was still reeling over the infidelity of Queen Guinevere with Sir Lancelot. At the battle of Camlann, Mordred and Artoria killed each other, but it has been foretold Artoria will return to save her country someday.

**Class Skills:**

**Riding**: B.

Saber is extremely competent at horse riding, and whenever she is on a horse this Skill is ranked A+. She is also quite skilled at handling all manners of wheeled vehicles, including motor based ones from the modern era. She is even capable of piloting aircrafts despite having no personal experience with them. However, she cannot ride Dragons or Phantasmal Beasts.

**Magic Resistance**: A

In life, Saber was not particularly durable against magic, but the prestige and magnificence of her legend has greatly raised this attribute of hers. Saber can easily plow through most unchanted spells and shrug off curses of non-divine origins.

**Personal Skills:**

**Instinct**: A

A veteran of many military campaigns and well used to surviving court intrigues, Saber has become an expert on determining the best course of action through most situations, especially those related to combat. She is highly qualified at seeing through others' techniques and reading their weaknesses and strong points alike.

**Charisma**: A

Holding the position of a King and conqueror for years, Saber held a tight sway over most masses and armies under her command. Her speeches can move almost anyone into action no matter the odds. She has a high power of conviction and even seduction, should she ever put her mind into it. Most individuals will come to greatly respect Saber even if they do not share her viewpoints.

**Mana Burst**: A

This is an ability meant to gather and channel magical energies from the environment into one's own body and weapons. During warfare, Saber becomes one with her surroundings, and through gathering and then releasing the energy gained from the World's will, she may greatly enhance her physical stats and attacks for short spans of time.

**Noble Phantasms:**

**Invisible Air:** C

This Noble Phantasm acts as an invisible sheating barrier meant to both protect Saber's primary weapon from being identified through invisibility and make its strikes harder to predict, block or parry. Additionally, the air field it creates around Saber's sword increases its reach, and can be employed as a blunt tool to strike at large groups of enemies at once.

**Avalon: The Ever Distant Utopia:** EX.

Saber's sheath for her main offensive Noble Phantasm, which was said to render its owner invulnerable to all physical damage. Its origins hail from the Land of Fairies, the King's final resting place from where she will return someday to lead her people once again. Also offers additional defenses against magic. Regrettably, not only this Noble Phantasm can only protect one person at a time, but it was also lost to Saber some time ago.

**Excalibur: The Promised Sword of Victory:** A++

Saber's best known and most offensively destructive Noble Phantasm, forged and delivered to her by the mysterious Lady of the Lake to replace Caliburn, Artoria's first blade, the famous Sword in the Stone, after it was shattered in battle. When released, Excalibur's full power will manifest itself as a massive thermic blast covering a gigantic area in all directions around Saber, but mostly directed towards wherever the blade is pointing. Excalibur has holy properties, being a symbol of the passage from the pagan eras to the Age of Christianity.

**Summoning:** "I ask of you, now- Are you my Master?"

**Start of Battle:** "Come at me with all your might!"

"To the count of five! One, two... five!"

**Attack:** "Have at thee!"

"Fuh!"

"Yaaa!"

**Victory:** "I apologize. But the oath of a king to achieve victory cannot be broken."

"You still lack training. Push your body and mind further, and then come back to me. I might even grant you knighthood."

**Defeat:** "Even if you defeat me... a second Artoria will come, and then a third one, and then..."

"No... Not like this..."

"I'm sorry, Master..."

**Defeat by Noble Phantasm:** "I will return... when Britain needs me the most..."

**Noble Phantasm Activation:** "Sheathed in the breath of stars. A torrent of shining life. Hail! The Sword of Promised Victory! **EXCALIBUR!**"

**Extra Dialogue:**

"Shirou...! I... Shirou...!" (When you have Archer Young Emiya.)

"To be able to even form a contract with the King of Heroes... you are something, Master. He is... well... a Heroic Spirit who poses certain problems, but his ability is exceptional. You might become used to his behavior... Though, I never did." (When you have Archer Gilgamesh.)

"The Archer cloaked in red... To be able to fight with him is pleasing, but also sad. Whatever path in life he has chosen, that Heroic Spirit is destined to continue fighting." (When you have Archer EMIYA.)

**Birthday:** "Happy birthday, Master. May it be a good one."

**Event:** "Hm. I have just had a premonition I had not felt in the longest of times. A celebration of harvest, perhaps. Let us investigate, Master."

**Holy Grail:** "To undo the mistakes of the past. To repair what I foolishly wrecked through my blunder. That, if ever possible, would be the greatest relief and expiation I could ever reach…"


	2. Chapter 2

_Fate Grand Order_, _Fate Prototype_, _Fate Zero_, _Fate Stay Night_, _Fate EXTRA_, _Fate Extella_, _Fate Apocrypha_, _Fate Strange Fake_, _Fate Kaleid Liner Prisma Illya_, _Fate Requiem_ and _Fate School Life_ are the creations and intellectual properties of Nasu Kinoko and Type-Moon.

All other characters and franchises mentioned are the intellectual properties of their respective copyright holders.

* * *

**History Lessons.**

**Path Two: Assassin.**

* * *

Assassin, the Servant who kills in the shadows. This young man of the cloth, Kotomine Kirei, had received his proof as a Master, the seals of command on the back of his right hand, exactly three years ago. His father had called this early manifestation a precious gift from God, and then suggested Kirei to choose Assassin as his Servant for Heaven's Feel, the Holy Grail War of Fuyuki City.

"It is for the best interests of mankind," elegantly purred the green eyed, dark haired Tohsaka Tokiomi, sipping from his glass of the finest red wine. The three men were secretly gathered in Tohsaka's exclusive Fuyuki villa. "Only a magus from one of the three original families could master what lies in the Root after accessing it. The Einzberns have lost their way; the Matous, their power. Only I could use the Holy Grail for what it was intended at last, and for that I have secured the relic of history's greatest hero. It would be pointless to war against each other, Kirei-kun."

"I understand your point," the younger man told his mentor quietly, standing respectfully in his presence. "I have no wish for the Great Grail myself, so I don't desire to fight you for it." All of this was true, too. Kirei's heart was empty, and that meant he had no personal ambitions to speak of. At least, none he wished to think about, much less share or follow.

"That's excellent," his gray yet jovial father approved. "Then let's join forces for the greater good. No matter what happens, Cup cannot fall in the wrong hands. Out of everyone in the Church and the Magic Association, only we share common ground. We won't make they mistakes they would commit, fighting only for their own interests. You will support Tokiomi, and for that, an Assassin to strike behind the scenes as our friend leads the charge is the best alternative."

"That is very logical, Father," the other priest nodded sedately. His heart took no joy from serving others, whether his associates' intentions were truly sincere or self-serving to a degree, but he still knew that was his duty. A tiny part of him briefly flickered inside, alive for once, at the fleeting idea of sending someone to snuff lives treacherously, but he quickly silenced it, his face ever stoic. "I will do it, of course. I have all of my faith on Tohsaka-sama's capacity to achieve victory with our Lord's help."

And those words sealed the fates of all three of those men.

_"Let thy body rest under my dominion, let my fate rest in thy blade. If thou submitteth to the call of the Holy Grail, and if you wilt obey this mind, then thou shalt respond, child of Hassan-i-Sabah."_

Summoning an Assassin was easy as long as one had the marks of a Master. No relic was necessary, just the intent to invoke the Class and the mention of the Old Man of the Mountain during the ritual. Assassins were by default the disciples of the Order of Hassan, its elite killers. Which was why Kotomine Kirei and Risei couldn't believe what they'd see the night selected for the summon, shortly before the sixtieth anniversary of the Third Fuyuki Heaven's Feel.

_"I make my oath here,"_ Kirei chanted the in the darkness of the church. _"I am that person who is to become the virtue of all Heaven. I am that person who is covered with the evil of all of Hades."_

Standing behind his son, Risei grew excited, absently rubbing his sweaty hands together, as the floor under them began glowing. Completely unfazed, Kirei kept on the incantation, his attention never wandering.

_"Thou seven Heavens, clad in a Trinity of words, come past their restraining rings, and be thou the hands that protect the balance…!"_

And then, a major explosion of light, and a sublime ecstasy of triumph pumping through both men even as they were momentarily blinded. Kirei regained his sight first and then only could gasp in shock and awe that were so new and alien to him. For what stood before him now could not be one of the League of Assassins. It wore all black, buta ll resemblances to the illustrations in his textbooks ended there.

This was a grotesque caricature of a hypermusculated man, skin chalk white, smelling of pooling sweat and cheap wore black leather pants, black boots and fingerless gloves, and an open leather jacket, that of a Hell's Angel biker, showing off his massive hairy chest. His hair was black, long, wild and scraggly, and his eyes bloodshot red, as evil as those of the demons Kirei had often hunted as a Church Executioner. In his mouth a smoking cigar, in his right hand a huge metal hook attached to a long rusty chain. Around his waist, a belt with dozens of gun holders and several pouches stuffed with grenades, knives and plastic explosive.

"Yo," this man growled, waving a hand. "I'm Assassin. Call me Servant an' I rip yer fraggin' faces off. Which one of ya pedo dweebs called th' Main Man here?"

"You're not a Hassan," Risei faintly said.

"Last time I checked, no, I wuzn't, Gramps," Assassin chuckled gruffly. "Why wouldja care? You stiff-necked penguins just gotta way better than that. F'get 'bout desert dwellin' pansies in Halloween masks, you fellas hit the jackpot! It's me, Lobo! Number One super duper hitman in th' whole fraggin' galaxy! If it lives, I can kill it fer ya, an' if it doesn't, I'll revive it an' then kill it again!"

Kirei, his initial surprise abated, bowed. "It is my pleasure, honorable Assassin. I'm your Mas—summoner, Kotomine Kirei, and this is my father, Risei."

Lobo blinked, then looked around. "Wait. 'Tis a Catholic church, right?"

"That's correct."

"An' yet you're… dad an' sonny-boy?"

Both priests nodded.

"How does that even work, your adopted or—ya know what, nevermind! Like hell I care! What matters is, if dat pansy-ass infodump voice back there wuz right, I'm here ta kill a whole lotta Servant freaks fer ya an' then collect all Quartzes 'til cows come home, okay?!"

Kirei nodded, deciding to ignore the whole strange tangent about Quartzes. Must have been a cultural quirk of this Servant's race, whatever that was. "Indeed."

Assassin grinned evilly from ear to ear, yellow fangs chomping down on the cigar. "Music to my ears, Clyde! Now we're talkin' th' same language. What are we waitin' fer then?"

"Um, for the other Servants to materialize," Kirei replied.

Lobo blinked. "Ya mean I'm the first?"

Risei nodded. "I'm the appointed Supervisor for this War. All participants should register with me before entering the fray."

Assassin ran a hand down his own face. "Well, frag! Those candy-asses better not take long! In th' meanwhile, what if we hit a brothel 'til then?"

"We're men of God!" Kirei reminded him.

"That didn't stop your daddy from spawning you, Pretty Boy!" Assassin snarled. "What, you contented with altar boys then? Th' Main Man doesn't swing dat way! That tape from Noonan's wuz doctored, I tell ya!"

Risei sighed. "I'll take you to one, Assassin. I figure it's the least I can do for your services."

Kirei stared at his father.

"What?" the old man defended himself. "I happen to do community work there, trying to steer those poor sheep away from a life of vice and decay. Only that, and nothing else!"

"You ain't taking me off to go screw literal sheep, are ya, Gramps?" Assassin asked.

* * *

Across the worlds, through the eras, the Holy Grail War may take myriads of ways. It may be a desperate contest between stray children from a prior ritual, it may be an advanced simulation staged on a lunar colony in the far flung future. It may be a final stand against the demons that would erase human history from the seat of the King of Magic, or a bloody succession war in Ancient Rome. It may even be a televised games program or a demented car race. Sometimes in swimsuits.

But all of them feature the new against the old, the female principle against the male, the scrappy underdog against the grizzled and confident old dog of war with thundering jaws to match its bite.

The Fourth Fuyuki Heaven's Feel was no exception, as Tohsaka Rin faced Gilgamesh, peerless King of Uruk, in the former's palatial home.

The golden monarch began his strike with a bout of hearty laughter able to shatter any normal child's faith and self-esteem. "Bwa ha ha ha ha! You, my Master?! It is to laugh! From any grown man, I'd consider that claim a capital crime," at this point Tokiomi discreetly rubbed his own throat with a subtle flinch, "but from a child it is such a sweet jest! How laughable pitiful innocence can be at times!"

Rin pouted, pointing at the Command Seals on the back of her hand. "I'm not joking! See this? It's the proof I summoned you!"

He wiped the tears of laughter from his serpentine red eyes with a finger. "Poor youngling! It was my own willpower that brought me here where I'm sorely needed. You were at best just a conduit." Looking around the room, his gaze fell on Tokiomi, who had fallen to a knee before him, his head low. "From your appearance and the fear in your eyes, I deduce you are the insolent girl's father, aren't you?" he coldly asked him.

"Insolent…?" Rin-chan murmured, a small vein bulging on her forehead.

"Indeed, Sire," Tokiomi humbly said. "Please forgive her. She is used to dominance, as we are of a higher status than our contemporaries. A lower family would have never achieved the miracle of contacting someone of your magnificence."

Gilgamesh wasn't impressed. "If you are the best these times have to offer, then I truly fear to see the rest." He looked at the Kotomines next, pausing before Grail induced knowledge settled in, and he recognized their attire for what it was. "At least you had the good sense of bringing representatives of your faith for the occasion. High priests at the very lowest, I would expect…"

"Well, well, well!" an even taller figure said, appearing behind an uncomfortable Kirei and smoking a large cigar. "So 'tis the front guy, huh? Nice style, Goldilocks. Who's your hairdresser? Ma'am Fifi?"

Gilgamesh sneered, visibly disgusted at first sight. "Ugh! And who is this ill-smelling mongrel brought to offend my senses? Am I supposed to exterminate him?"

"This is my Servant, Assassin, Your Majesty," Kirei quickly said, while Tokiomi discreet but hastily pulled Rin towards himself protectively. "He is here to deal with all threats below your royal notice."

"I see," Gilgamesh grouched. "A lowly enforcer… Couldn't you have gotten someone better for me?"

"Hey, mister!" Assassin growled. "Lowly nuthin'! I'm th' best money can buy! I've razed thousands o' planets down ta th' ground! I'm Lobo! Motherfraggin' Main Man! Killer f'r hire extraordinarie, or however dat's spelt!"

Gilgamesh smiled venomously. "I hope you won't pretend I should pay this mercenary's salary from my pristine wealth, meant only for the noblest endeavors. Or will you?" he added dangerously.

"Never would dream of imposing that upon you, Sire," Tokiomi said, hands firm on Rin's shoulders to keep her quiet. "Assassin's fee and all related affairs are Kirei's responsibility. You will see, he is my disciple, of sorts, and we have thought of a plan that we think will make your victory even more—"

"You would believe I wouldn't be able to easily win this War on my own, no matter who would face me?!" Gilgamesh bristled, on the edge already.

"Not at all, of course we have the utmost faith on your legendary abilities," Tohsaka quickly replied, "but we also have thought we shouldn't bother you with anything below your importance…"

"Man!" Assassin grumbled. "What a buncha pants-wettin' pussies ya high fallotin' wizards turned out ta be! Guy just walks into yer own house an' you start whimperin' f'r mercy, right 'fore yer own kiddo, as soon as he looks your way!"

Gilgamesh smiled again, and Kirei already was taking notice of how mercurial he could be. "Cowardly indeed, don't you think? But there's wisdom on fearing the King's wraith, at all."

"Mebbe. Me, I've never been keen on wisdom an' stuff like dat!"

"I can tell."

"Yup, dat's me awright! An' proud of it too! I don't care at all f'r all dat stuff!"

"I'm glad you're aware you're a festering, fetid, rancid and revolting ignorant, offensive to the eyes, ears and smell of all that is good and refined," Gilgamesh said.

Assassin grinned from one ear to the other. It was a terrible thing to behold. "Goldie! Mebbe I wuz wrong 'bout ya! Ya flatterer, y'have just painted The Main Man down to a tee!"

Gilgamesh laughed again, shaking his head. "I like that you know your place, mongrel!"

"That, I do! And yer right, I'm the most sordid son o' a fraggin' bitch ever!"

"That's rich! You're so conscious of how much of a thoughtless brute you come across as!"

"Why thank ya, Clyde! I do my best effort on keepin' my public image, after all! Wouldn't wanta make folks ever think I've gone legit or sumthin'!"

Rin's eyes darted back and forth between the Servants, who stood their ground against each other forcing wide clenched murderous grins, then she asked her father, "Is this what they call the start of an odd friendship?"

_Somewhere in Finland, for some reason, a very young Luviagelita Edelfelt sneezed._

"Okay, mebbe we can get along after all, Goldie! Just 'member!" Lobo pointed at Rin and told the King, "I saw 'er first, so in ten years, first dibs on dat ass are mine! Got that?!"

Archer shrugged. "You can have her. I have a feeling she will grow up to resemble someone I'd rather forget, after all!"

Rin made a small but very pronounced frown. "I'm not sure what are they talking about… but I'm sure I don't like it at all!"

Her father had simply gone too pale and blood drained to speak at all, eyes hopelessly wide open and sweat blanketing his whole face.

* * *

Night fell over Fuyuki City, and we turn our eyes towards another residence of a founding family for the Heaven's Feel ritual. Several familiars were on guard around the grounds of the Tohsaka palatial estate, just out of range enough to keep an efficient watch without disrupting enough as to be wiped out in retaliation. While the wards around the walls of the manor kept mundanes from seeing or hearing anything extraordinary happening within, familiars were enchanted with the means to bypass such measures more or less easily.

Matou's insects in the trees. Sajyou's crows, lazily flapping around the premises. Lord El Melloi's mice, scurrying along the sidewalks in nervous patrols. Many are the espionage tools of the magi, a society used to distrust and mutual backstabbing, especially in the eve of a momentous occasion such as a Grail War. And all those watchful eyes bore witness to this particular War's opening salvo, signaled at first by an apparently innocent but decidedly unusual tiny new star suddenly streaking through the clear skies.

**_"NAAAA-TURAL BORN KIIIIILLERRRR!-!"_** howled a madly joyous voice as a large flying vehicle zoomed from above towards the manor. Elongated to a disturbingly phallic degree and ornated with macabre skull motifs, it was unlike anything the Masters had seen before, and so was its driver, now visible as he came close enough, scratching his stomach while singing hideously, **_"BORN IN A WOOOORLD GOOO-OOOONE MAAAAA-AAAAAD!"_**

With bated breath, each scrying Master waited. Their familiars stuck to their spots of surveillance, watching this monstrous man clad in black leather hover above the luscious gardens, past thick brick and stone walls protecting the secrets inside from the eyes and ears alike of those not initiated in the mysteries of magicraft. Then this hulking being hopped down to land boots first on the carefully manicured lawn, gleefully brandishing a large, rusty hook and chain around.

"Yo!" he called out with a roar that would have alarmed the whole neighborhood, if not for the standard magus privacy measures. "Tohsaka Tokiomi, time ta pay th' piper, ya bastitch! Come out an' play if yer mommy will let ya, ya bearded big chicken! An' bring yer Servant too, assumin' he's man 'nuff ta go a few rounds wit' th' Main Man!"

It was not unheard of for Servants to display boisterous or eccentric, even often unpleasant, behavior. Madness was a frequent part of the genius that would elevate a soul to the Throne of Heroes, and magi who entered this most dangerous of games were advised to keep this in mind. Even so, this Servant startled even the hardened Zouken and Kayneth as he marched towards the front doors of the mansion, scratching his crotch with a hand while the other shot around a massive handgun, not the kind of weaponry expected from Legendary Spirits.

"I'm comin' fer ya then, big baby!" the brute yelled, blasting the heads of several statues of illustrious ancestors of the family. "Ya better prepared two elegant an' fancy graves, one fer ya an' one f'r whatever scrawny punk ya managed ta summon! Not that I'll leave 'nuff of either ta fill a—"

And then another voice, confidant, manly and haughty, filled the air. Much more refined but no less harsh and callous in each pompous word full of arrogance and pride. "Who is this noisy worm who would crawl from the gutter to try and disturb the King's rest? Nobody, that's who!"

"Who the frag…?" the intruder grunted, looking up. Standing on the rooftop of Tohsaka's house with his arms folded, a golden figure of flashy and virile posture presided over the scene, a picture perfect image of what magi thought when told the words 'Heroic Spirit'. Of this, there was no doubt whatsoever.

The golden man laughed. "Only a simple vagrant! A mad mendicant who soiled himself and now knocks on my door, begging for attention! Very well. I am generous with the unfortunate who lost their minds, so I shall let you partake on a few of my treasures before your demise!"

"Partake on this, nancy-boy!" the other Servant barked, taking aim and shooting at the golden man's chest plate, the shots each bouncing harmlessly off the armor. At the same time, the blonde gestured, darkly amused, and the air above him rippled open and opened itself, two large holes in the fabric of time and reality suddenly vomiting a myriad of sharp instruments of doom down on Tokiomi's lawn.

The familiars twitched and shook, and their masters could only gape at the fabulous display. Furiously, the twin sources of blades bombarded the unfortunate Servant with a primal symphony of war sounds that shattered the night, as hundreds of swords, daggers, scimitars, sabers, knives, and assorted cutlery descended on their common target, quickly reducing it to a fine red mist…

The Masters, from their safe vantage posts, gasped. Nothing human, or that had been once human, could have survived that. And yet, now the brutal barrage had finally paused, the feral invader still stood defiantly, with a grin even. His clothes were reduced to shreds and his body bled copiously all over, but he remained firm on his feet even now, while dislodging a screwdriver from one of his temples, ignoring the shower of blood bursting from the wound.

"Really, Clyde? _Really?!_" With a disgusted snort, he tossed the screwdriver and the now useless hand cannon away, and instead pulled out a pair of really big machetes, one for each lacerated hand. "'Kay! That wuz a neat trick, I'll admit it. Care ta see if yer just as good up close 'n personal?"

The demigold of gold raised an eyebrow. "Oh? Interesting… Looks like being kicked so often has made this mongrel as tough of skin as he is on mine sublime eyes. Hah hah!" he laughed, pulling two longswords out of his vortexes and leaping down to strike at the wounded Servant with them. "Far from my honor to deny a dying man his last wish! If you are even a man, that is!"

"Ask any girl an' she'll tell ya I am, Blondie!" his adversary growled, blocking his first downward slash with a machete. Despite being pierced all over and through with all manners of sharp weapons, looking like a walking pin cushion of swords more than anything else, he still moved fast enough to match his agile enemy as the two fought along the ruined lawn, blades continuously clanging against each other. "How 'bout ya?! I've seen girl scouts rougher-lookin' than ya, bastitch!"

It was the first battle between Servants in the Fuyuki Fourth Heaven's Feel.

And it was hell on Earth already.

* * *

The ancient versus the modern. The elegance versus the crude, raw brutality. The beauty versus the ugliness. The earthly versus the alien. The front lawn of the Tohsaka manor was witness to a clash for the ages as Archer and Assassin collided bestially, time and time again, bashing dual machetes against twin longswords. Neither fighter was stylishly skilled, but they moved with power and killer instinct to more than compensate for it.

"I must confess, you have surpassed my expectations, mad dog!" Gilgamesh congratulated Lobo, with a smile that was as gorgeous as it was cruel. "You never shall be worthy of sitting by my table, but I still might throw some scraps out my window to fill your belly, if you know your place as to wait outside!"

"Yer not too weak either, pretty boy!" Lobo laughed. "But don't let that go to your head! Whatever ya do, tonight Tohsaka Tokiomi draws his last wine-filled breath!"

"I call no man my master!" Gilgamesh growled, throwing a feint that fooled Lobo and gave him an opening to chop the Assassin's right arm off. "But your very existence offends me, so I will not allow it to succeed, just on general principle!"

"Psche! Ya think dat's gonna slow me down?" Lobo swung with his (in every sense of the word) left arm. "It'll take more than dat to..." A moment later, Gilgamesh sliced again, this time cutting Assassin's head off his neck with a geyser of blood. "Okay, okay, dat's better!" the head said as it flew up. "Still not 'nuff, ya know! I've been in worse fixes...!"

"Ugh!" the Archer sneered, leaping back from the blood before it could stain his shiny suit of armor. Again, he folded his arms, and a single, large vortex appeared over his head. "You have wasted more of my time than you deserved to. Let this be thy judgment! Depart my presence, foul one!"

And again, the weapons rained all over the area, piercing and shredding and splitting and chopping, covering every bit of flesh left in the ruined grass, mutilating and pulverizing relentlessly until all that remained of Assassin were a few droplets of blood seeping into the ground.

The battle was over. And the winner was clear now.

* * *

Tokiomi only could stare, aghast, at the smoking ruin that used to be his valuable gardens now. With both hands stuck to the glass of his window, his mouth hung open, his eyes open round. Behind him, Kirei stood feeling, for once, something remotely close to amusement, although not enough as to move him into a smile.

Gilgamesh appeared in the library room, smugly tossing his red cape around his shoulders. "A most pointless pantomime," he said on arrival, "but it has been a long time since I last performed in a play, so I shall overlook this slight. I was the first ever actor, I will let you know! My magnificence as a thespian lit the first stage in Uruk, showing the road for all generations to come! You mongrels have so much to thank to my talents."

_Somewhere in the Throne of Heroes, Emperor Nero sneezed._

Kirei nodded his way. "A wonderful performance indeed, Your Majesty. My congratulations."

Tokiomi finally could pull away from the window, rubbing the wetness from his green eyes discreetly. _Eyes on the Grail, eyes on the Grail,_ he mentally admonished himself. _The Root will make it all worthwhile in the end._

"Yes, your contribution is much appreciated, O King of Heroes," he said, forcing a stoic tone. "This display will make any Masters think twice before attempting to disturb you, and afraid out of their feeble minds, they will be easy prey. Assassin's endurance made for a much more effective show than a Hassan perishing quickly, as well. The bigger the obstacle, the more notorious your greatness at overcoming it."

"The credit is all mine!" Archer sneered, incensed. "And I only went along with your foolish suggestion out of consideration for a child! She better watched me being awesome, Tokiomi. Hopefully, I will make your lineage's stupidity stop with you!"

Tohsaka flinched inside, his considerable pride as an aristocrat hurt yet again by this demigod. "I… I thank you for your kindness to Rin, master of all you survey…"

Gilgamesh smiled haughtily. "A child is a fool who still has a chance to improve upon growth. The overwhelming majority of adults are fools already too old to change their ways. And speaking of fools…"

Several drops of thick dark blood were flowing in under the library's door, quickly coming together in a puddle, and then forming at first a madly bubbling blob. Then said blob grew several layers of coarse, dense white skin. The men saw the amorphous figure before them pull itself back into a humanoid shape while growing in size; bone and tissue and veins and arteries reconstructing themselves in moments. First the large bare feet were complete, and then the rest of the structure that would be supported by them, a brutish skeleton over which muscular flesh crawled quickly. Entrails were formed, skin and capillaries reaffirming themselves all around them, wrapping them in a robust, strong frame, taller than any of those present. And soon, before them stood a newly revived, fully naked, just as hairy and surly as ever Assassin.

"I'm hungry!" he growled.

Gilgamesh laughed. "You are hilarious, Assassin! Abusing you is so much better than quickly dispatching a Hassan peasant! Truly, massacring you does wonder to vent the royal stress out!"

"Yeah, yeah, yer lucky a good merc thinks of no job as under 'em!" Lobo grumbled. "Not the first time I've taken a scripted fall, but if we ever get to blows fer real…"

"… I will just make what transpired here tonight look gentle," the King boasted. "But perhaps I will keep you around after this charade of a quest is over. Beating you up is so much fun!"

"I hate this guy, I really do," Assassin shook his head. Then he slammed his hands together, roaring at Kotomine. "Yo, Padre! Ya deaf or sumthin'?! I said I wuz hungry! Just lost all stomach contents back there fer yer sake, ya know! Ya disciples of dat hippie are all about feedin' the needy, aren'tcha?!"

Kirei nodded quickly. "My apologies, Assassin. I will go after something to placate your belly," he said before moving out of the private library speedily.

"And don't forget tossin' some brew in too!" Lobo puffed through his nose after the priest left. "I never can tell if he's snarkin' when he says those things. What's up wit' that guy anyway?"

"Could you please just put on some pants already, Assassin?" Tokiomi wearily asked.

"What's th' hurry, Pops? Ya gotta bad case of wang envy? Get used ta it! I won't touch yer wife 'cuz dat's unprofessional, but 'member, in ten years, an' assumin' yer kid doesn't turn ugly…!"

Gilgamesh smiled at the thoroughly disgusted Tokiomi. "Were I unfortunate enough as to be you, mongrel, I'd start overfeeding your daughter and looking for a plastic surgeon with no scruples…"

* * *

Assassin relaxed under the sun, sitting on a floater at the middle of the Tohsaka Pool, with a can of beer in a hand and sunglasses on his grinning face. "Yeah, man, t'is the good life!" he laughed to himself. "Who woulda thought it, Japan ain't that bad after all! Babes are a bit too flat f'r my tastes, but other than dat, I could get used ta visit dis dump every once in a while!"

Aoi approached the edge of the pool. "Excuse me please, Assassin-sama, sir… but, would you terribly mind putting on some shorts, or at the very least swimming trunks, while enjoying our pool? We have a child in this house, after all…"

"Yeah? An' how izzat my fault?" Assassin growled. "Not my blamed responsibility if ya heartless parents didn't move yer kid away 'fore this whole bloody brouhaha started! Honestly, th' nerve of s'me people… Keepin' their brats around during them dangerous times, an' then whinin' when they get their spines ripped off, or get an eyeful of good ol' Main Man Meat… Typical fraggin' soccer mom! Good thing I offed mine 'fore kindergarten!"

Aoi's face twitched a little. "You know, Assassin-sama, I do think you might be right to some degree, and I apologize to you… **_INDEED, I THINK WE MIGHT HAVE TO REMOVE SOME 'LITTLE FRIENDS' FROM HERE RIGHT NOW!"_** she howled madly to make a Berserker proud, pulling massive chainsaw out and swinging it dangerously towards Assassin's crotch while turning it on.

He yelped, then began paddling away in the opposite direction. "'Kay, 'kay, got th' message! Feetal's gizz! I'll go fer some Speedos or sumthin' already, lady! Damn! Wuz startin' ta catch some cold on th' family jewels already, anyway…!"

* * *

Once upon a time, there had been a perfect, peaceful land where a superior race lived secluded from the rest of a chaotic universe. These beings had achieved a status of enlightenment where all countries in their planet had erased the concept of borders and embraced each other as a whole. All men and women viewed each other as beloved brothers and sisters and lived accordingly, working together to eradicate concepts as pollution, famine or war. They created an utopia of clean streets, pure air, and harmony with nature. It was a truly happy and self realized world.

Then one day, a baby boy was born.

The child was, physically, no different from any other in that paradise, perhaps just slightly bigger than the average, but not really bigger than some others, either. But while all prior newborns of his species had, during recorded history, been well behaved and quiet, this one ripped and tore his way out of the womb, savagely cutting his own mother from the inside in the delivery room. Then, just as soon as he emerged with a feisty burp, he jumped for the throat of the doctor and claimed his second ever victim. This respected physician was fortunate, since for him, it was over quickly. The grinning little white creature took his time with the confused nurses.

That first outburst sated, the child's father somewhat managed to rein him back for the next few years. The utopia had abandoned and forgotten the notions of punishment and imprisonment eras ago, and so the wild child was allowed to walk among the perfected society, more or less quietly at first, the occasional maimed nanny or podiatrist aside. But then a momentous time came, and the child entered school.

Tribb was the first one to recognize him for what he truly was, to accuse him on it, to warn others, just to be ignored by her peers and superiors. This respected educator was the child's first and longest lasting tutor, and her keen mind recognized the signs of something different in him. In turn, he seemed to spur on the worst of other children, who abandoned their own steadfast principles of civility to gang up and bully on him. This proved being a grave mistake, for not only this little reprobate was even meaner, but also stronger, faster and smarter, and soon he was the only one to show up for Miss Tribb's morning lesson, smiling and bathed on blood.

Tribb broke the taboo and left the planet in terror, foreseeing the tragedy to come. This spared her from the genocide, even though years later her former student would find and frag her regardless, truly becoming the last of his species. But this was still far ahead into the future. For now, the child was growing up into teenagehood, letting his hair grow as wild as his rebellious strike, stumbling from one academy to the next, showing a blatant lack of interest on the conventional education but forging his own brand of self-formation. He somehow found a way to gather communication signals from other planets, mostly to listen to disruptive, obscene and brutal lyrics of alleged music he would call 'heavy metal'. He learned the ways of the most feared and cruel empires of the galaxy, the Khunds, the Dominators, the hordes of Apokolips, from their spacefaring transmissions. He called them 'kewl, man!'

He also began dabbling into chemistry and mechanics.

And one day, without any warning, he unleashed the lethal airborne black plague on a planet that had not known of serious illness through millennia. He sat back, listening to his rock 'n roll, as he watched his compatriots roll over and die in long drawn agony, their own healing factors overcome by a disease he had just injected himself with the only batch of cure ever. He chuckled, then laughed, for days as the grotesque show of neighbors and strangers alike turning around from inside, vomiting their entrails all over the streets, until the once pristine Eden was quiet once again, this time with the calm of the dead spreading everywhere.

Then the young man finished his beer, tossed the can back over his shoulder, belched, and growled a pleased, "Well… time ta hit th' road, then! 'Twas fun, folks!" He jumped into a vehicle of his own design that Kirei already knew well, turned it on, and fearlessly blasted out into space with a lengthy perverse laugh…

"- Kirei! Kirei, please, wake up!" his father was begging him, grabbing him by the shoulders and shaking him. "Good Lord, boy, I was worried! You weren't waking up no matter what!"

"I… I wasn't?" Kirei blinked, sitting up straighter on his church office chair, rubbing his sweaty forehead. That dream… that powerful feeling of raw evil and carnage only for their own sake… "Sorry, I believe I dozed off, that's all… What is it, father? What is the urgency?"

Kotomine Risei sighed. "It's Tokiomi. He has just called. He wants, no, demands to know where Assassin is right now…"

* * *

"Whaddya mean I'm not welcome here?!-?!" Assassin bellowed in fury, waving his hook and chain around. From the upper tower of the Fuyuki Einzbern Castle, Irisviel von Einzbern looked down in concern at her lawn, where Saber, Archer and Rider sat sharing large jars of liquor (even the pegasus unicorn, who somehow just kept hers levitating before her) and facing the raging bull of a man in black leathers. "You've gotta lotsa guts, tellin' the Main Man to frag off!"

Gilgamesh frowned at him. "This is a Banquet of Royals, fool! What good are you here? You don't even begin making for a decent enough waiter, like the mongrel over there. Begone already! You sour the King's mood with your mere presence and stench!"

"For once I must agree with the Archer, you are not wanted in Milady's domains," the blonde Saber said, pride and disgust tainting her noble voice with a slight sneer. "It's not just that you are crude; your vileness goes beyond your manners and extends over your whole soul."

"WHICH soul?!" Assassin demanded. He turned to Rider, who seemed more amused than anything else, other than the comment had made on Waver, which she had scowled at. "How 'bout ya, Gladys? Yer another snob, or what?"

Rider chuckled heartily, handing Lobo a full cup with her telekinesis, which the bounty hunter accepted with a grunt of thanks. "I've never been against partaking and partying with my subjects, and even the humblest guard can make for a pleasant partner, Assassin. However, the three of us _did_ make an agreement this was to be, as Archer called it, a Banquet of Royals. On my honor, I also must stand by that decision, taken before your arrival here. Surely a self-proclaimed man of his word like you will understand."

Assassin finished chugging his drink down, then threw the jar away, hitting a yipping Waver Velvet in the head. This earned him another glare from Rider. "Izzat so? You only had ta say it 'fore, Gladys! No problemo then, fer I am, also, a King!"

Saber, Archer and Rider just stared, sour-faced at him as he said this, slamming a fist on his chest.

"Being the King of Idiots doesn't count, mongrel," Gilgamesh told him.

"I'm serious, Mr. Broken Record!" Assassin huffed. "Mongrel this mongrel that, get some new material already, willya? Anyways, since I'm the last an' only one of my whole species, I can give mesself any title I fraggin' want ta! So I proclaim myself Lobo the First, King of All Czarnians, that is, me! Long live the King, baby!"

And proudly, he belched and sat down on the grass, reaching over for another jar to fill.

Gilgamesh rolled his serpentine eyes around. "If your species is all but extinct already, perhaps there's still some justice to this universe."

"You said it, Goldie!" Assassin guffawed, eyeing the wary Saber lasciviously. "Mind, I've thought of restarting th' race every now an' then, an' I'm in a good mind ta breed right now, but truth be told, we're all much much better without those geeks!"

"Hm?" Rider raised a thin and elegant eyebrow. "You don't seem the least sorrowful about the loss of your people."

"Frag no! An' I wouldn't call 'em 'people' or 'mine'! Buncha no-goodnik peacenik clowns, they're all much better off dead if y'ask me!"

"So, who disposed of them?" Saber asked, feeling like she knew the answer already, and greatly dreading that she wouldn't like the confirmation in the slightest.

"Me, of course!" Assassin grinned, and Saber's face sank in contempt at this completely expected answer. "Rubbed 'em all off so I could be King of the World, babe! After all, wit' me around, what need is there for any more Czarnians?"

Archer shrugged, taking his next drink. "I'll agree that, if they spawned you and allowed you to wipe them out, then they deserved it."

Before Lobo could nod enthusiastically, however, and shocking everyone present, Rider stood up violently, dropping her latest jar in outrage. "Confound you, you… fiend!" she roared at Lobo. "I thought of you as a just an uncouth eccentric with an enthusiasm for combat and conquest, but… but this! Only an aimless lunatic would annihilate his whole own species!"

"Well, duh," Assassin calmly said. "Thanks fer the nice words, Gladys, but what gives? Don't tell ya made it into office by bein' a choir girl yerself! Ya musta killed an' pillaged all across yer fairytale mudball with a happy smile on dat ugly horse mouth!"

"Goodness, I'd never-! But even the warlords of my world would only attack foreigners, other nations! That's what warmongering, wrong as it is, is all about! Not about massacring those who would be your own followers, your… friends! For, what good is a sovereign without subjects? I will teach you the true meaning of kingship, you… pretender!"

She lifted a long white leg and its hoof, shouting, _"Come forth, my magical domains of wonder! In the name of the friendship we all have shared! Listen to my voice!_ _Equestria: Magical Land of Harmony!-!-!"_

Lobo grinned as the whole castle and its grounds were swallowed by a sudden, racing hurricane wind, magically planting the most beautiful flowers and trees one could imagine in all directions, as far as eyes could reach. And he slobbered madly while pulling two obscenely huge butcher knives out, facing the hundreds of racing horses and unicorns, several of them wearing battle armor, and incredibly fast moving flying pegasi zooming for him, appearing everywhere around them.

Rider had just been flanked by six smaller colorful mares, staring down at him in stern judgment.

"Ohhh, yeahhh!" Assassin smacked his lips together. "Massive cruelty against animals, comin' up! Now THIS is a damn party!"

* * *

Matou Zouken leered demonically, lurching over one of the quivering, bound children Caster had trapped in her workshop. "Now be quiet," he told the little boy, holding a large, writhing millipede between his bony fingers and mere inches away from the child's tear stricken face. "I think I've found a way to make Caster's transformation procedure even more efficient, but I need a few test subjects first. Oh, she'll be so impressed, and rather jealous too, when she—"

The wall behind him exploded then, sending the ancient wretch slamming against the floor, where he rolled back onto his behind, reaching over for his cane. "What the devil?!-?!"

The hulking white man he'd seen attacking Tohsaka's Archer, the Assassin, stomped into the workshop under Matou Manor, holding Caster by the throat. His clothes were singed and part off his hair still in the same green fire coming from the dark fairy's hands, but he seemed not to care as he tossed the heavily battered female Servant aside.

Assassin pulled a Cuban cigar out of his pants and lit it on his own smoking black mane. "An' what do we have here, hmmm? Man, no wonder they wanted me ta find ya guys! Ya filthy pedos musta taken half the brats in dis stinkin' town inta dis kindergarten o' yers!"

"Ah, the other brute," Zouken seethed, pulling himself up. "Actually, I'd been waiting for a chance to meet you. I've seen what you are able of, and also that you hardly have any moral scruples, so why not to join us?"

"Sorry, Baldy, but no way Jose. I wuz told ta find an' rub ya off, an' the Main Man never goes back on an assignem—assiggymen—a job!"

"But just think!" Zouken insisted, while Caster dusted herself off indignantly and waited to see how the negotiations turned out. "My intellect, Caster's craft, and your raw power… we would be unstoppable!"

"I don't need ya ta be unstoppable, Buggy! Find yerself a better angle!"

Zouken snarled venomously, slamming his cane down. "Be honest, now! Do you really like obeying the Master pulling your chain as if you were a mad dog?!"

"Hell, of course not! But a job's a job, no matter how much of a pansy the Boss is! Basic working ethics, Wrinkles! I wuz told ta frag ya, an' that's what I'm gonna do, period!"

"Fool!" the old man wagged the cane at him. "Who's your Master, and what do they care about these stupid children? Don't tell me you do, either! So what if we're growing slightly more noticeable than usual? That won't matter at all once we've reached Akasha!"

Assassin shoved him back. "Don't get mouthy wit' me, Adult Diapers! First, whoever my Master is, dat's no fraggin' biz of yers! Second, I don't care one iota if ya Harry Potters wanna play in secret or not, but th' almighty dollar sez, if I wuz paid ta rub troublemakers like you off, then damn if that's not right what I do! An' third! 'Course I'm no bleedin' kid-mindin' heart! Feetal's Gizz, I took out all brats in my planet along wit' everyone else! But, this!"

He pulled a gun out and shot one of the gagged, chained children in the middle of being torturously transformed into more of Caster's imp soldiers. "Only a spineless coward turns twerps inta goons ta fight fer 'em instead of fightin' their battles themselves! Now dat, Clyde, does sicken me! Cowardice! Ya can't even face th' music without tryin' ta sweet talk me like I'm your stupid dancin' monkey!"

Zouken bristled furiously. "Do you want me to fight you personally, Assassin?! Fine with me! I killed Jack the Ripper with my own two hands, an ox like you will be nothing in comparison!"

A gigantic swarm of twisted, bulbous insects appeared buzzing all around him, and with a wave of his hand, he sicced them on Assassin, the monstrous bugs chomping and gnawing madly at his flesh, all over his body.

"Flies an' bumblebees, f'r real?!" Assassin laughed, shaking and swatting the carnivorous fliers off himself. He reached over to flicker Zouken's forehead with a middle finger and knocked him out. "Ya big baby! Yer lucky ladies go first, so sit back 'n wait 'til I've danced wit' the babe…"

Grinning cruelly, he turned around to face Caster. "Yo, Sweetums! Th' Man's gonna give ya a big goodbye kiss! With tongue, even!" he laughed, taking the rusty hook in his hand.

Caster glared in extreme anger at him and chanted ominously, shrouding herself with flames.

**"Now shall you deal with me, O Assassin, and all the **_**powers of Hell**_**!"**

"See, now dat's what I'm talkin' 'bout!" Lobo approved, seeing Caster transform herself into a gigantic black dragon, with horns and wings, all but bursting out of the workshop, crushing its unfortunate captives under dropping debris. "You're even on all fours fer me already! Gonna tell ya right now, I've slept wit' uglier chicks before, dis ain't gonna discourage me…"

She roared a titanic pillar of fire on him.

* * *

Assassin stood before the burning Matou Manor, still mostly on fire himself, and with his hands stuck in what remained of his pockets. "Stupid broad couldn't recognize a good man when she saw one..." he was grumbling to himself. "I thought it coulda worked too..."

Matou Kariya staggered towards him, gasping agonically. He could feel the painful tugs of Berserker's prana on him as his Servant took on Saber half a city away, but as soon as he'd gotten news of the fire, he'd left all of that behind and rushed here desperately. He pulled on the Servant's jacket as best as he could, pleading at him.

"Oh my God! Sakura-chan! Sakura-chan's still in there! You've got to save her...!"

After a few tugs, Assassin finally noticed him and swatted his hands off. "Hey, don't get so touchy, Clyde! Who knows what kinda sickness do ya have, what if it's contagious?! Some folks just don't have any civic whatchacallit!"

"My Sakura!" Kariya begged. "Go in there and save her, please! She's only an innocent victim in all of this!"

"So are all th' other brats trapped there, what do ya want me ta do, ta be some sorta elitist, an' give 'er a special treatment?" Assassin grouched. "Just wait fer the firemen an' their adorable dalmatian mutts! Seriously, Ugly, way ta bother a dude who's been having a bad day awready..."

"I'll pay you!" Kariya cried.

Lobo's red eyes went very round, there was a tiny 'Ka-chink!' sound coming out of his head, and his face spun around so he could smile very wide and hypocritically at Kariya.

"Why, of course, I'll be glad ta help ya, Sir! After all, a good workin' citizen like me would do anythin' fer a worried dad or whatever's child...!"

"Oh, thank you, thank you...!"

"How much do you have in there?" Lobo curtly asked, smile lost just as soon.

Kariya blinked, madly looked into his pockets, and pulled out some scarce spare change and a few mint candies.

Assassin took them off his hands, gruffly counted the coins, and shrugged, pocketing the change and downing a mint. "Eh. Fer a quick grab 'n bring job, this' a fair cop!"

"T-Thanks..." Kariya gulped, seeing him walk back into the inferno and soon walk out with a small bundle wrapped into a blanket. "Sakura! Sakura!" Kariya sobbed, running to them... and then doing a double take as he saw his nephew Shinji peeking out the bundle and blinking back at him. "Weren't you studying away?!"

"I'm as surprised as you," Shinji confessed.

"This... This isn't Sakura-chan, you huge moron!" Kariya screamed at Assassin. "This isn't what I paid you for! In the worm pit! She's the one in the worm pit of the basement!"

"Sheesh!" Lobo said. "Okay, man! Sorry! Who can blame me, all your stupid lil' human girls look the same ta me!" He carelessly threw the shrieking Shinji aside on the sidewalk and stomped back in.

Another moment later, he walked back out, now holding a very quiet and staring-into-the-distance Sakura, with a small twirl of her hair on fire, in his arms. "This better be her, and not one of th' others I had ta step on in my way there an' back!"

"Sakura-chan! Sakura-chan...!" Kariya wailed, taking her in his embrace and hugging her tightly.

Sakura just kept on staring into the horizon. "I wish for the destruction of the whole of mankind," she softly said to no one in particular.

"Aw, ain't she cute!" Assassin smiled. "Now I see what do ya like in her...!"

* * *

Kariya quickly left the city with Sakura (and Shinji, if anyone cares) leaving the carnage of the Grail War behind right in time. With Zouken dead and Berserker being soon killed off, he still managed to survive a shocking ten years more after that, somehow, even if they were spent in the terrible physical pain of insects constantly swarming under your flesh and eating you alive.

Sakura became a world renowned fashion model and bagged some redhaired guy as her boytoy husband. She didn't get to destroy the worlf but became good friends with the Kardashians, which is almost just as bad.

Shinji achieved nothing remarkable whatsoever during the rest of his life.

* * *

**I am unbound at last!** the tainted Grail said, hovering with such a blinding brightness Kiritsugu had to look aside, covering his eyes with a bleeding forearm. **You fools! By 'winning', you have merely damned your world to an eternity of—**

"Yo there, Cuppy!" Assassin greeted it casually. "Nice ta find ya at last. Not like I care an iota about what happens to this slimeball ya dweebs call a planet, but while in that Throne of Heroes brothel thing, and lemme tell ya that's the boringest whore house I've ever been at, some of the bitches hired me to repay ya on a few things they went thru..."

The Grail focused its attention on Assassin for a moment, then gasped. **Oh, no. It couldn't possibly be you! How comes, what is this I don't even—**

Assassin lit a cigar on the power the Grail was radiating, took two puffs, and aimed a particularly large, even for his standards, hand cannon on the (un)blessed cup. "Somethin' from the boys, man."

He pressed the trigger. For a few moments, Kiritsugu truly thought the world had stopped existing.

Perhaps he was right.

* * *

"Well, with that, I take my leave of this mudball! 'Bout damn time, too!" Assassin said, hopping on the space bike he had built himself after pillaging through the remains of the Ryuudou Temple. "Gotta be some real jobs to pull out there..."

"Um, aren't you going back to—" Emiya reluctantly asked.

"Where, the Throne of Heroes? HAW! Nah, it explicitly told me it didn't want me back, ever! Well, good luck, Clyde! Sorry 'bout the dead wifey! NAH! Not really! BWA HA HA HA HA HA!" And he took up towards space. "YEEE-HAAAAA! The night's still young, and I'm still not sated...!"

Kiritsugu could do nothing but blinking, staring up, way up, at the bike becoming a speck in the night sky. He stood completely alone at the middle of the wreckage blanketed by ash that used to be Fuyuki City. "I wonder what had him killed in the first place..." he blandly mused.

The bleeding head of one Kotomine Kirei popped out of the ruins. "... Medic, please?"

Kiritsugu kicked him back down. HARD.

* * *

**To be Continued.**

* * *

**Assassin.**

**Identity:** Hahn Sho Lobo (roughly translated from Khund as 'He who Devours Your Entrails and Thoroughly Enjoys It'.)

**Titles:** The Main Man, The Ultimate Bastitch, Killer of the Cosmic Royalty.

**Alignment:** Chaotic Evil.

**Attribute:** Star.

**Natural Enemy:** Superman.

**Likes:** "Of course it's booze! An' broads! An' lotsa an' lotsa carnage an' bloodshed! Those are the things a real Main Man craves! An' then there's my fishies, naturally. Th' only creatures in this fragged universe you can call noble an' graceful an'… Don't laugh now! Even if you're my Master I'll blow yer stinkin' face off!"

**Dislikes:** "It's gotta be pansy do-gooders like Supey an' Goldstar, that creep. I can't stand them goodies who do things without expectin' fer a fair reward! What are they, idiots? They make things harder f'r the rest of us hard workin' fellas!"

**Parameters:**

Strength: A ++

Mana: D

Endurance: EX

Agility: B

Luck: A

Noble Phantasms: B

**Class Skills:**

**Presence Concealment:** F (Trust us… Don't ask. Okay, it's actually E, but he said he'd kills us if we didn't give him an F, pleasedonttellhim.)

Unusually for an Assassin, Lobo never made a point of carrying out his murders in secrecy, and unless bound by wording on a contract he'd rather kill his prey as noisily and with as much collateral damage as possible, all to increase his infamy as a troublemaker and sate his bloodlust. However, while he eschews making his own involvement into assassinations a secret, he has no real interest on divulging who ordered him to commit a hit, and can be persuaded on the subject with relative ease.

**Independent Action: **EX. (See also _From a Single Drop of Blood…_)

Lobo has been banned from the afterlife, as Heaven, Hell and Purgatory have all declared him persona non grata. This, coupled with his amazing regenerative properties, has rendered him functionally immortal, and he can remain in this world indefinitely even after the death of his Master. Besides, Lobo is fully willing to consume human souls to sustain himself in case of need, and odds seem likely even the Throne of Heroes doesn't want him around and will pawn him off on Earth at the slightest chance. It's unknown what could ever kill Lobo and send him to the Throne of Heroes in the first place. Probably the heat death of the universe, but in any case it's for the best not thinking about it.

**Personal Skills:**

**Battle Continuation: **A

Lobo is a stubborn son of a bitch who will not surrender in battle until his opponent is dead, no matter how maimed, mutilated or wounded he may be. Even when overwhelmed by superior numbers or force, he is a natural born master of clean getaways, which he often uses to set up ambushes and counterstrikes.

**Animal Dialogue: **C

Lobo, for all his many moral flaws, genuinely loves a species of space dolphins he's sworn to protect, and he's fond of Earth dolphins as well. In general, while he cares little to nothing about other animals, they still seem to attach themselves to Lobo, and at various points a gorilla, a bulldog and a flock of vicious Frag Penguins have been drawn to him as his pets.

**Noble Phantasms:**

**From a Single Drop of Blood…: **A

Lobo's miraculous healing factor, inherited from his Czarnian species, allows him to regenerate destroyed or missing parts of his body in seconds to minutes, depending on the seriousness of the wound. Even regrowing his whole head after having it exploded will only take him a few hours at most, and in the meanwhile Lobo's headless body can keep functioning, although blind and erratic. Lobo can revive eventually even if all that's left from him is a single drop of blood; in life this ability used to be even more fearsome, allowing Lobo to create clones of himself from each drop of spilled blood, but thankfully it was neutered by Vril Dox, commander of cosmic law enforcement organization L.E.G.I.O.N.

**Space Hawg 666: **B.

Lobo's ride through the spaceways, a sleek, dark rocket motorcycle able to fly unscathed through black holes and loaded with all manners of deadly weaponry. While Lobo is a master at riding this vehicle, that doesn't give him the Riding ability, as he tends to destroy most other vehicles he takes and to kill all animals he mounts, space dolphins aside.

**Honor of The Main Man: **C

While Lobo is crude, callous, vulgar, careless, selfish, amoral, unhygienic, indecent, repulsive, cynical, greedy, abusive, inconsiderate, gluttonous, perverted, envious, aggressive, mean, loud, petty and cruel, he's a man of his word and once sworn to do something he'll do it no matter the odds against him. However, Lobo only follows the strict wording of what he's promised, and attempts to fool him into acting against his will tend to backfire horribly, as he'll find loopholes to turn unwanted orders against those who issued them, something to keep in mind when using Command Seals on him.

Lobo hates pretty much everyone, but a few individuals have gained his good graces: downtrodden cosmic driver Space Cabbie, Lobo's favorite diner owner Al and his waitress Arlene, vitriolic best bud Etrigan the Demon, and the members of superhero team The Authority. Should you join this short list, this Noble Phantasm's effects will keep you from suffering serious injury during Lobo's rampages, although humiliation and affronts to your dignity and self esteem will invariably happen.

**Beginning of Battle:** "Say yer prayers, Clyde! It's fraggin' time!"

**Attack:** "Frag ya!"

"Gonna feed ya ta the buzzards!"

"GANGWAY!"

**Victory:** "Fragaroonie!"

"Frag-a-tastic!"

"Izzat all? F'r real! Bah! I had a harder time wastin' the fraggin' Easter Bunny!"

**Defeat:** "Feetal's gizz...!"

"You... You damn bastitch... I'll get you next time...!"

**Defeat by Noble Phantasm:** "Fraggin' pansy, you! You had to... cheat to stand a chance...!"

**Noble Phantasm Activation:** "TO THE PAIN!"

**Dialogue Samples: **

"Santa, huh?! I wasted Santa Claus once, yanno... Wanna me to go fer an encore?" (When you have Santa Artoria Alter, Santa Altera or Samba Quetzalcoatl.)

"What is this? Brats?! Hey, Clyde! I'm no one's fraggin' babysitter, this never wuz in the contract!" (When you have the Berserker Louds.)

**Summoning:** "This crap again?! Feetal's gizz! Oh well, I'm Assassin! But I'd rather go with Lobo! Th' Main Man! Numero Uno primo mass killer f'r hire, atcher service… 's long as ya can pay wit' lotsa sweet mana prisms an' quartzes an' medals, of course!"

**Birthday:** "Happy birthday, Clyde! Let's start early an' go hit the nudie bar already! What? You don't know any? Dat's okay, we can start our own!"

**Event:** "Wuzzat? Some kinda party? Awright! Let's go there, dweeb, on th' double! The Main Man never misses on a party he can crack up ta twelve!"

**Holy Grail:** "A wish? I already gotta all I want from life! I'm free, strong, feared, smart an' incredibly handsome! But I guess I coulda wish fer a few million credits or sumthin'!"


End file.
